Wes Streeting has warned that the NHS will get no extra funding from Labour without “major surgery” or reform, including more use of the private sector.
The shadow health secretary insisted he would not be put off by “middle-class Lefties” who cry “betrayal” over using the private sector to bring down waiting lists – adding he was “up for the fight” with NHS unions.
It is the latest in a series of bold statements about the health service by Mr Streeting, who said Labour will only give the NHS an extra £1billion pounds if medics work weekends to ensure more patients are seen.
He wrote in The Sun: “The NHS is a service, not a shrine. It is judged by how well it serves the public, not how heavy a price we’re paying for failure.”
Mr Streeting doubled down on his comments during an interview on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, telling the show: “There’s a principled argument here, which is that those who can afford it are paying to go private, are being seen faster, and their outcomes and their life chances and their quality of life will be better. Those who can’t afford it are being left behind. And those tend to be people from working class backgrounds like mine, and I think that’s a disgrace.”
He also said that the “howls of outrage” from those who are concerned about NHS privatisation are “water off a duck’s back” because: “I don’t think I could look someone in the eye who’s waiting for months and months, sometimes over a year in pain and agony for treatment, and tell them that they should wait longer because my principles trump their timely access to care.”
Quizzed about whether it was right to write for The Sun, he said he made “make no apology whatsoever for making sure that the widest possible audience is hearing Labour’s alternative especially on one of the biggest crises facing our country, which is the crisis in the NHS.”
The shadow health secretary has long been a staunch proponent of NHS reform and has made it clear that Labour will take a preventative approach to healthcare in a bid to reduce demand on the NHS.
Labour has repeatedly said they will not make any unfunded spending pledges and that shadow ministers must consider reform before cash due to the UK’s economic woes.
Mr Streeting was recently critcial of the NHS, calling it a “20th century service that hasn’t changed with the times and isn’t fit for the modern era” and that “If the NHS doesn’t change, it will die.”
