‘There will be people on NHS trolleys in corridors this winter’, UK health secretary says

We spoke to the Health Secretary Wes Streeting after and began by asking why the government didn’t arrive in power already in possession of a 10-year plan, and if they will have wasted a year in office before taking action.

Wes Streeting: Firstly, we’re not wasting time. We’ve hit the ground running. We ended the junior doctor strikes within weeks of coming into office. We’ve put in place the funding to employ 1,000 more GPs onto the frontline. We’ve taken action on public health with a ban on junk food ads targeted at kids. We’ll be bringing forth the tobacco and vapes bill and the mental health act reform very shortly too. So there’s lots of things we’re already doing. When it comes to the long-term plan, we’ve come in with a very clear sense of direction in what we would like to do.

The reason why we’re embarking on the biggest national conversation in the history of the NHS is because I think, and the prime minister thinks very strongly, that when it comes to reforming public services, you shouldn’t do it to people, you should do it with people. And within the NHS and the millions of people who use it, is a huge amount of experience and expertise we want to draw from. Because with the best will in the world, I actually think most people think, ‘the last people I want deciding exactly how the NHS is run is a bunch of politicians, I’d like experts’. And unlike the previous government, this government can’t get enough of experts, so we’re drawing on people.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: So you’re actually trying to bind everyone in, aren’t you, so that you can’t be criticised in the years ahead? So everyone’s signed up and you can say ‘everyone agrees this is the plan.’

Wes Streeting: I’d love to avoid criticism. I’m braced for the fact that people will always criticise, and by the way we shouldn’t reject out of hand criticism and challenge, we should embrace it. So part of what we will see, I’m sure, during the course of the engagement, in fact I’m pretty sure on change.nhs.uk, will be people already posting saying, ‘well, I don’t agree with the government about this or I don’t agree with a health secretary about that’. Bring that advice, bring those views to bear because I think we only get one shot at this. I think this is existential for the NHS and we’re taking action now to get the NHS back on its feet. But really what this process is about is making sure we’ve got an NHS fit for the future.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: That’s for the long term. But right now in the next three months, you’re facing a winter crisis and people will lose their lives because of the inefficiency of the NHS. How is it going to be different under this government? What are you going to change this winter?

Wes Streeting: Probably the most important change that we’ve already delivered is making sure that the NHS isn’t coping with strikes at the same time as coping with winter. The last couple of years, the NHS has been plagued with strikes. Don’t underestimate the impact of those strikes, the disruption that they cause. So creating the conditions in which NHS leaders and frontline staff can just think about how to deal with patients rather than deal with the loss of activity around them, that is a really big change.

I wish I could sit here and tell you that in the first winter of a Labour government we could just abolish corridor care and no one would be on trolleys in corridors. There’ll be people on trolleys in corridors today and there will be throughout the winter. What we’ve got to do is, instead of going hard on arbitrary targets this winter, is to make sure that for every patient that comes through the door, it’s the safety and the dignity of that patient that is first and foremost, rather than trying to work to some arbitrary targets from a new government.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: For a lot of hospitals it’s about deficits, isn’t it? And the NHS Confederation believe there’s more than £2 billion in deficits currently in hospital trusts. Are you going to deal with that? Are you going to wipe out those deficits so that hospitals aren’t cutting services this winter?

Wes Streeting: When we came in, as well as the £22 billion black hole that the chancellor identified in the public finances, were a number of direct, real world consequences for government departments. But for the future and beyond the budget, which I don’t want to pre-empt, but as the chancellor said, the NHS is a priority for the budget. Beyond the budget, I will be coming forward with further action that’s needed to make sure that we don’t end up with a culture in the NHS of deficits year after year.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: Can you just clear up what you’re saying about Ozempic? Because a week ago, you seemed to be saying this might be used to bring down unemployment and then you sort of backed away from it. So what do you want to do with fat jabs?

Wes Streeting: I’m really glad you asked the question, because reading some of the commentary, you would think that I’m going to wander the country in some dystopian manner, involuntarily jabbing fat people at the checkouts in the supermarkets involuntarily, or going after unemployed people, assuming they’re all overweight and making them have jabs.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: Do you want to offer it?

Wes Streeting: To be clear, I think there’s some encouraging evidence that weight loss jabs can be effective at reducing obesity, reducing cardiovascular disease and diabetes as long as, and this is the important bit, it’s done alongside changes to diet and changes to exercise. And the reason I mentioned the unemployed, by the way, is because if you look at people who are both off work and off sick or off sick or unable to work, a lot of the health conditions they suffer from has obesity as a driver.

Obesity costs us three times as much as smoking. So the argument I’m making isn’t that we’re going to jab the unemployed to get them back to work. The argument I’m making is we’re going to tackle obesity because in doing that, we are less likely to be seeing people off work, off sick. And I think this medication could make a real difference for people. But we’re proceeding in an evidence-based way. I say to people, forget the headlines for a minute, no offence to your profession. We are approaching this in a really thoughtful, considered and evidence-based way, and crucially an ethical way as well, recognising that the health of the nation and the health of the economy go hand in hand.