Labour's Shadow Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, has been writing in The Sun and winning its support for his diagnosis for NHS reform. As they note:
THE Shadow Health Secretary warns the NHS today that there will be no additional funding without the “major surgery” of reform under Labour.
Wes Streeting asks for Sun readers' backing for a massive overhaul of our troubled healthcare system.
They added:
[This] would include bringing in the private sector to help cut waiting times.
Their conclusion was:
Pitching himself against healthcare unions and Labour supporters, he says “middle-class lefties cry ‘betrayal'”, but he is “up for the fight”.
Now I know he did not write the Sun's story, but he chose to talk about this in The Sun, and he used the words he is quoted as saying - because that is the way that these things work.
So, we have a Labour shadow minister actively seeking office, declaring war on his own party's natural supporters and the NHS unions. And people wonder why I can see nothing of merit left in Labour.
This labour leadership is a total disgrace, having sold out on any remaining principles the right of the Party ever had.
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Labour has “called for greater ‘use of private sector’ in NHS care”.
Streeting has received over £190K in “donations” from private healthcare companies
Starmer has £150K+
Cooper nearly £300K.
Simply, Labour has sold out. The Labour opposition are shills.
Source:
This is how much Labour and Tory MPs get from private health firms
https://tinyurl.com/yjc5y4t8
Labour call for greater ‘use of private sector’ in NHS care
https://tinyurl.com/upb25vsz
How can you get the private sector involved in helping with backlogs, when almost all its Doctors are also working for the NHS?
Oh, and see
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68717086
So its not even as if its a safe option either
Exactly, it’s the same pool of people and if they’re working for the private sector they could just as easily be doing the same work within the NHS – so why aren’t they?
Because the NHS won’t pay them enough for it.
It’s about bed capacity for elective operations (as opposed to emergency admissions) not about the capacity of the surgeons. NHS hospitals are full because there are too few beds for the population and too few social care places so you can’t admit people for planned operations as there isn’t a bed. The private hospitals have the space available.
You do realise just how few beds there are in private hospitals, don’t you?
That they still have some spare shows just how poor their business model and service must be….
Noticed a headline in The Times while out shopping last Saturday, (I paraphrase) which said that the private sector is struggling to cope with the patients prepared to pay for treatment rather than wait on NHS lists. So Streeting’s not going to get very far with his solution is he, unless of course he encourages, ie pays for, more capacity in the private sector.
Shows what an idiot he is doesn’t it?
The aggressive ‘anti lefty’ desperate to prove his credentials to the right wing propaganda rags and their readers labour are so obsessed with.
We lack capacity as a nation. As we saw with the Nightingale hospitals, left empty as there was no-one to staff them, this can’t be remedied overnight. How long does it take to properly, and in light of the existence of Physician Associates I stress properly, train medical staff? It will be generations before the NHS recovers, if it ever does, meaning many of us simply won’t live to see it.
“a massive overhaul of our troubled healthcare system”
The tories under Camoron in the 2010 – 2015 parliament did just such a thing. The results are there for all to see. As Einstein noted .. etc… thus does Streeting by expecting a different result from the same “experiment” show that he is insane, a child spouting nonsense.
Everyday, in every way, LINO and its apparatchiks show they are unfit to govern.
Karl Popper was wrong in many areas – but in terms of complex systems he was right (Poverty of Historicism) – you change them a bit at a time – anything else will give very bad results – gosh what a surprise – the NHS in 2024 living testimony to Popper being right and Tory/LINO being wrong – all the time.
(Bliar & Co also deserve blame: focusing on results/targets – the slippery slope to where we are now.)
Roy Lilley provides excellent responses to the drivel Streeting talks. Lilley calls him ‘silly boy’ for a reason.
Roy Lilley’s emails provide a magnificent if depressing insight into the strengths and dysfunctionalities of the NHS. Find them via this: https://ihm.org.uk/nhsm/
Link please!
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/27175749/wes-streeting-nhs-major-reform-labour/
Roy Lilley’s newsletters highly recommended – he is scathing about Streeting
Indeed
‘Silly boy’ as he describes him
This was a coalition government, and the LibDems were perfectly happy to back Lansley’s “reforms”. The rot goes deep.
there was another Act in 2022. This sought to bring about more integration but also gave, I understand, the private sector a voice in decision making.
Like the 2012 Act this seems to have little public discussion.
It’s worth pointing out that this is the exact same rhetoric he used in an interview with the Telegraph a while ago, which was on the front page of the print edition.
It’s safe to say that this is exactly what he thinks, and isn’t the paper misinterpreting intentionally or no. (Although I think we both know that he wouldn’t get the interviews with either publicatin were he not simply a full-privatization Tory.)
Years ago, my father-in-law, who had private health insurance, was diagnosed with cancer. The private insurer immediately told him to go to the NHS as he would get better and immediate treatment there. Sums up the private health sector perfectly. To cherry pick the easy and lucrative treatments, and leave the heavy lifting to the NHS. Labour are a disgrace.
If anything goes wrong during surgery/treatment, private hospitals immediately call an ambulance to have their patients transferred to an NHS A & E.
They do…
Well going by the number of people who’ve died as a result of excessive waits in A&E thanks to the current state of the NHS that doesn’t look like being a viable strategy does it? Or are the cherry picking private sector profiteers going to try and rely on their queue jumping patients being in such a poor state when they get to an NHS hospital that they’ll be triaged ahead of people who’ve already been waiting in A&E for hours because the NHS, unlike them, works on the basis of clinical need and not ability to pay?
Nice. Two lots of queue jumping then. Perhaps a Tory government that is obsessed with the need to charge for alleged healthcare tourism would like to look into this!?
Exactly. Cherry picking and with the NHS acting as free insurance for the private health companies when something goes wrong.
‘Many smaller private hospitals do not have intensive care or high dependency units to take care of patients if something goes badly wrong. In this case, you will be transferred to the local NHS general hospital for emergency treatment, even though you have paid for private care’ –
https://www.netdoctor.co.uk/health-services/private-treatment/a4564/what-happens-if-something-goes-wrong-with-private-surgery-or-treatment/
‘Private Medical Insurance won’t cover every medical need — there are some exclusions. This means, even with a Health Insurance policy, the NHS will continue to provide some of your healthcare, for example emergency medicine and intensive care. The NHS is better resourced to offer these treatments than the private sector anyway’ –
https://www.drewberryinsurance.co.uk/private-health-insurance/guides/what-does-private-medical-insurance-cover
Agreed
Tonight’s Panorama is an eye-opener to the risks:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001y43c/panorama-nhs-patients-going-private-what-are-the-risks
I will take a look. Then Channel 4 at 9….
Following on from tonight’s Panorama, We Own It have started a petition: https://weownit.org.uk/act-now/end-private-healthcare-deaths-invest-nhs#
Signed
I saw it. Depressing and disgraceful. When my partner had a knee replacement operation a year or so ago at a Spire hospital paid for by the NHS due to capacity constraints in the NHS (thanks to the Tories of course) it’s a good job nothing went wrong.
If these private hospitals won’t provide their own ICU and A&E facilities, they should be charged a fee every time they use NHS facilities to do so.
My daughter is a nurse, and many years ago she did a few shifts in a private hospital. The nurses just stood around talking, and when she asked about checking the patients as per the NHS, she was told, ‘they have visitors so if anything goes wrong they’ll let us know’. She was appalled at how unsafe that was.
I am really hoping the Greens win in Bristol Central (as many seat projections are suggesting), as that will be the first indication of Labour losing to the left, giving them a shock. (Ah but of course that is “liberal middle class lefty woke” territory.)
Labour’s positioning now is not without consequences in the future – a big transfer of votes to the Greens and Lib Dems in the future.
We need an independent candidate to defeat Streeting in his constituency.
All suggestions welcome. I am serious, the indy org wants such a candidate and will support them. Web site coming soon.
There is an independent candidate that will be challenging Streeting – Leanne Mohamad.
(One of Owen Jones list of independents and Greens to challenge Labour – especially right wingers.)
Leanne Mohammed is standing against Streeting in Ilford North
https://leannemohamad.co.uk
Reply to Mike Parr
Are you aware of the Redbridge Community Action group, part of Illford North constituency? They have selected a candidate, Leanne Mohamad a British/Palastinian woman and they already have a campaign underway.
https://x.com/LeanneMohamad/status/1777011763453575444
From what’s posted on social media, she had a good body of support and is actively growing the campaign. So far she has raised £21k of her £25k target.
https://x.com/LeanneMohamad/status/1776918901340659806
Labour are not only weak and desperate in grovelling to Murdoch, they are stupid.
The circulation of the Scum has been (deservedly) declining for years. I’d memory serves it’s about 1.3 million now, apologise if in wrong.
The NHS workforce are mostly unionised and as the NHS workforce is nearly a million, that’s getting on for a large percentage of the Scum’s readership he’s attacking there.
And then there’s people such as myself, this blogs readership, a lot of people I know and a few million others out there who are the ‘middle class lefties’ insulted by Streeting in this article.
Not very intelligent electioneering is it?
Labour HQ have completely abandoned both the vaguely democratic decision-making process within the party and taken for granted that the 300k members they claim are left (includes lots of unpaid) will distribute leaflets produced centrally. The 200k members who’ve quit are variously labelled as extreme lefties, Middle-class lefties or even anti-semites. Bridges have been burnt in the effort to emasculate politics in order to emulate the desert that is the USA system. However, we plucky Brits do not lie down and die easily! There are a lot of potential Jamie Driscolls about.
Is there a more pathetic insult to dish out, especially from a labour politician, than ‘middle class lefty liberal’?
People like teachers, academics, writers etc. Wasn’t a certain Clement Attlee (a) emphatically middle class and (b) a ‘lefty’ (a lazy stupid term frequently used by lazy stupid people
We know that when a neo-liberal uses the word “reform” it is a code word for cuts and the destruction of public services.
At least since Margaret Thatcher the NHS has been regularly subjected to “reforms” and in that time despite massive advances in medical science the service provided by the NHS has become ever worse, the general health of the living is at an all time low and for the first time in 100 years, even before the Covid epidemic, we experienced a decade where life expectancy started to decrease.
The only improvement seen during this black farce, was during those years of the New Labour period when funding was increased to that of comparable European countries. Unfortunately Labour have learnt the wrong lessons and appear to believe that the improvements really came from pointless reorganisation and the entirely counter productive public funding of private health care.
If any government was serious about making changes to our health system they would look at alternative public health care systems in countries like Germany and France and encourage public debate.
That they never do this suggests fundamental dishonesty and stupidity.
George Orwell looked at his fellow Etonians and observed that their key characteristic was their inability to learn anything because they were certain that they were already right about everything.
That now appears to have become the default position of all UK politicians.
Precisely Paul. New Labour got plenty of things wrong but let’s be honest, they did fund the NHS properly (however dishonesty it was done by the PFI) so that by the time they left office in 2010 satisfaction with the NHS was at an all time high.
A shame new new labour are unable to understand that a lack of funding for 14 disastrous years has got things to where they are now.
Brief points;
First, to Mike Parr. I’m afraid that the “change a little bit at a time” is actually a poor argument re the NHS, which was itself a huge radical overturning of the past system which these idiot pseudo-Labour politicos are now intent on raising from the dead but now in the greedy grasp of multi-national globalist predators. Let us remember that it was Blair’s New Labour which was the first ‘Labour’ government to cave in to the ‘marketisation’ begun by John Major’s Tories. The slow changers have been the political right – inside and outside the crumbling faux Labour party. The current bought and paid for Starmerists are just the miserable extension of past surrender monkeys.
Secondly, how howlingly ironic that all this is happening while the National Theatre is streaming Michael Sheen as Nye Bevan in Tim Rice’s play “Nye”.
Now, there is a man, Michael Sheen, with the passion and principle to lead a socialist regeneration of the world of politics – though, probably wisely and certainly understandably, he would have his sights set on his own country first.
NHS privatisation was started by the internal market and outsourcing of catering, cleaning, laundry, etc. introduced by the privatisation queen herself and was already well underway before Major got his mucky paws on the levers of power
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2023/07/forty-years-of-nhs-privatisation
But why oh why didnt the BBC r4 today interviewer ask about Labour’s private healthcare donations? They are beginning to treat Labour like the government in waiting – so dont probe too much.
One’s heart sinks when he talks about ‘ massive overhaul’. Politicians over the decades cant resist meddling – the Lansley internal market disaster being just one
https://lowdownnhs.info/explainers/nhs-reorganisation-a-never-ending-story/t resisit it can they.
The private sector is parasitical on the NHS – using NHS staff and skimming the lucrative easier treatments – with no follow up if things go wrong.
We no longer expect Streeting to depart from his narrative, which quite easily now avoids any mild questioning of how will he get more doctors, nurses, beds and equipment. I dont think he even says theydo need more doctors and nurses.
No mention of how Labour is going to sort out social care, without which the NHS cannot recover. As it is the shortage of beds due to people requiring social care having nowhere to go causing a significant part of the waiting list issues, it will only be addressed by use of the private sector. How very convenient for Wes and his fellow takers of private health insurance money.
Many years ago I was. a nurse on orthopaedic wards, where patients spent 10 days post hip replacement surgery. Now it is done as a day case ! and Streeting has the temerity to say that the NHS does not modernise. There are many other examples of how NHS care has been transformed over the years. the NHS does not need “reform” – it needs a functioning social care system,. properly funded primary care, decent pay and conditions for staff, repair of the many hospital buildings that are falling down around staff and patients, and getting rid of the PFI deals.
No, you’re wrong
Wes said a cross party solution was going to be required to this, even if Labour has a 200+ seat majority – meaning he has an excuse for inaction because the Tories will objct to anything he says
You can see his little cogs working a mile off
Indeed Streeting is a disgrace!
Reliance on the private sector for health care is thrown into stark relief by tonight’s Panorama…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m001y43c/panorama-nhs-patients-going-private-what-are-the-risks
Remember the Eccleston/Blair scandal?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58783961
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/oct/12/tonyblair-labour
Nu-Labour have been iffy for a long time!
During the Labour leadership election Starmer’s pledges included that under his leadership Labour would “defend our NHS” and “end outsourcing in our NHS”. He spoke about how his very ill mother insisted they not go private “and it was so important to her, however ill she was, as a matter of absolute principle, she felt that you shouldn’t make money from ill health, and that it is a matter of principle. It’s an absolute matter of principle.” You can see the clip here:
https://twitter.com/SaulStaniforth/status/1612048162746687493
So well done Wes Streeting for sticking it to the middle-class lefties like Keir Starmer’s late mother.
According to Starmer’s supporters, he was being honest and genuine during the leadership election but then Covid, Ukraine, and Liz Truss meant he had to change his mind. Starmer’s official biographer Tom Baldwin was on Newsnight last week praising Starmer for changing his mind:
https://twitter.com/BBCNewsnight/status/1776013398779588624
The biography has received a lot of praise for how it shows the real Keir Starmer, based on many hours talking to Starmer and those close to him, though I’m not sure how unbiased, accurate, and deep a portrayal it contains if the author really believes that Starmer was being genuine when he spoke about how his friend Jeremy Corbyn was a good leader whose transformation of the party should be built on and not trashed.
Indeed Simon. Damn these poxy ‘do gooding middle class lefties’ like my late parents who believe in decent healthcare for all, including the (mostly) know nothings who read the Scum that Streeting is so desperate to pander to.
Got to pander to Scum readers no idea whether the Earth is flat or round therefore perfect cannon fodder for winning elections!
Paul wrote: “If any government was serious about making changes to our health system they would look at alternative public health care systems in countries like Germany and France and encourage public debate.”
No need to go abroad to make comparisons, just have a look at how the NHS in Scotland (NHSS) is structured and run. Following devolution, NHSS rightly rejected the “internal market” concept, dispensed with individual hospital Trusts and reorganised the service on a regional basis, reverting to a structure of regional boards with managerial responsibility for the activities of the Acute hospitals and Primary Care services in each region. Inter alia this simplifies data collection and reporting and dispenses with the nonsensical internal market admin practices of Trusts billing each other and chasing payment from each other as if they were real privately-owned commercial businesses. One very tangible outcome of NHSS’s structure is that performance v targets is consistently the best in the UK across the board.
Spot the difference between the Starmer Party and the Reform UK Party!
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/08/reform-uk-criticised-for-claiming-funding-nhs-and-reaching-net-zero-are-at-odds
My suggestion for NHS reform starts with a simple one: keep Wes Streeting away from the NHS.
You had me at ‘keep Wes Streeting away’.
Hypocratic oath? Hypocritic oath more like. Private health care is a parasite that preys on peoples pain and fear. If you train to be a doctor with the at least partial aim of making a lot of money you really should be going into finance instead.