Wes Streeting tells the NHS “the days of blank cheques are over” and its extra Budget billions must be linked to reform
WES Streeting has warned “the days of blank cheques for the NHS are over” and extra Budget cash will be linked to reforms.
The health service will be given a multi-billion pound cash injection – even though other departments are scrambling to find massive cuts.
But Mr Streeting said the cash will come with strings attached and “all investment will be linked to reform” like weekend working and the roll out of tech.
Speaking exclusively to The Sun on Sunday, he said: “We have settled with the Chancellor. The challenge we have got is enormous, but I am happy with our Budget settlement.”
But he added: “The days of blank cheques for the NHS are over. The money simply isn’t there.
“We have got to restore some discipline into NHS finances and get deficits under control.
“And that means giving the NHS the tools to do the jobs and the investment on capital and tech.”
Chancellor Rachel Reeves is planning to drop a tax bomb on Brits in her Halloween Budget later this month.
A staggering £40 billion – mainly in tax hikes but also in spending cuts – is set to be unveiled.
This is expected to include increases in income tax for 1 million Brits and a rise in employer National Insurance Contributions – known as a “tax on jobs”.
So is Wes bluntly telling Brits – higher taxes are worth it to improve the NHS?
“Unless we take the tough decision now we are going to be paying a heavier price for the failure in the longer term”, Mr Streeting said.
He is speaking while on a trip to King George Hospital in Ilford – the hospital he credited with “saving my life” by diagnosing him with kidney cancer in 2021.
The Health Secretary will this week unveil a triple whammy of reforms to turn the “broken” NHS around in his 10-year plan.
It includes rolling out ‘wearables’ like smart watches and rings that track a patient’s health and help them manage conditions like diabetes and cancer.
Plans for a new digital ‘patient passport’ will finally come at parliament this week, so records, appointments and test results can all be accessed on the NHS app.
And new one stop shop neighbourhood health centres will be created so doctors, physios and dentists are brought together under one roof in the high street.
Meanwhile, hospitals that get extra cash to cut waiting lists will need to show they are working evenings and weekends.
Doctors will be told to use side by side operating theatres – so they can work on one patient and swiftly move to the next one with the efficiency of a Formula 1 pitstop.
Plans to build 40 new hospitals – announced by Boris Johnson but paused by Labour – will go ahead, Mr Streeting confirmed.
But many of the schemes are expected to take years longer than originally planned.
Mr Streeting said: “Every single one of them I am committed to…to deliver this programme is going to take longer than the Conservatives claimed it would.
“One of my local hospitals is directly affected by this. I am furious about it because I know how desperately needed these schemes are.”
WES Streeting has told of his inner conflict at deciding whether or not to vote in favour of assisted dying.
The Health Secretary said he worries that a right to die could feel like “a duty to die” if the law is changed.
He said: “I have in my mind’s eye one of my grandmothers who died a very slow painful death, an inevitable death, from lung cancer.
“There are moments thinking back to that time through my 10-year-old eyes even then I would have wished for the pain to end sooner.
“The challenge is, I do not think palliative care, end of life care, in this country is good enough to give people a real choice.
“I worry about coercion and the risk that the right to die feels like a duty to die on the part of particularly older people.
“I am also worried about the slippery slope, and the Canadian experience is not a happy experience as far as I am concerned.
“I am having to weigh those considerations up very carefully.”
Proposals to change the law to legalise assisted dying will be debated and voted on next month.
If politicians back the plan, the law could change as early as next year.