Primary care in England needs wholesale reform, alongside extra investment to revitalise struggling services, Labour’s shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, has said.
In a speech to the King’s Fund think tank on 21 April, Streeting said it was Labour’s job not only to hold the current government to account for its record on the NHS but to persuade the public that a declining health service “is not inevitable.”
Describing what action a Labour government would take if it won the next election in 2024, Streeting said, “Things can get better. It will fall to Labour to reform and rebuild our health service to make it fit for the future. It will be investment and reform that turn it around.”
“Road testing bold ideas”
Streeting has pitched himself as a moderniser,12 and he acknowledged that ideas he has floated in recent months—including questioning the future of the GP partnership model and enabling patients to self-refer for certain conditions—have “set the cat among the pigeons” in the profession. But he said this had been a deliberate attempt to stimulate debate.
“We are road testing bold ideas because the NHS crisis is going to require bold action,” he said. “I want to have the debate and the conversation with experts and those working in the health service now, so that when the next election comes …