Wes Streeting told The Telegraph he “shared the Treasury's cynicism”; on how the NHS spends money Photo: Heathcliff O'Malley
NHS staff will be told to work evenings and weekends under Labor Party plans to cut waiting lists, Wes Streeting has announced.
Neighboring hospitals will be asked to share staff and pool waiting lists as part of a £1.1 billion program to provide an extra 40,000 visits a week. Overtime pay will be offered to NHS staff who agree to work extra shifts.
In an interview with The Telegraph, Mr Streeting, the shadow health secretary, said senior NHS bosses who would silence whistleblowers , he will be fired again and banned from working in the health sector under the Labor Party.
He also said the NHS was “overly reliant” on migrant workers – which he called “problematic” – and he would like to see numbers reduced.
Mr Streeting said he “shares Treasury's cynicism about how the NHS spends money, adding that productivity levels must improve.
Earlier this week, Sir Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labor Party, unveiled the policy underpinning his general election campaign with a Tony Blair-style pledge card.
One of the six promises was to cut waiting times on the NHS by booking 40,000 more appointments every week. Sir Keir said this could be paid for by tackling tax evasion and non-home loopholes.
Mr Streeting told The Telegraph he intended to oversee “the biggest expansion of NHS staff in history”, saying it was “such a good plan that the Conservative government a stunning step.” -get at it.”
He said it would take time to recruit more doctors, nurses and midwives, “but in the meantime there are practical things that can and should be done to get patients seen more quickly.”< /p>
Under Labour's plan, hospitals would carry out surgeries on evenings and weekends, which the party says would allow them to complete a week's worth of surgeries in one day.
For these shifts, staff and resources would be pooled across a region of approximately from five hospitals. Patients will be offered appointments at nearby hospitals, allowing them to receive treatment faster.
Earlier this week, a group of doctors warned that NHS managers were ruining the careers of whistleblowers who raised concerns about patient safety.
More than 50 doctors and nurses told The Telegraph they were attacked after raising concerns over 170 patient deaths and nearly 700 cases of poor care.
Asked what he would do about it, Mr Streeting said: “Senior executives who silence whistleblowers will be sacked – and they will no longer work for the NHS. I can't stress this enough. We've seen review after review, report after report about the culture in the NHS and how to silence whistleblowers.
“This is a matter of patient safety – in some cases it has been a matter of life and death. Unless we are decisive on this issue, we will not see the cultural change that the NHS desperately needs.”
NHS data published earlier this year showed that one in five NHS staff in England is not a British citizen. The health service employs health workers from 214 countries, and the proportion of roles held by non-UK citizens has risen to a record high.
“The NHS is overly reliant on migrant workers,” it said. Mr Streeting. “This is problematic for three reasons. First, we recruit from countries on the World Health Organization's red list of severe healthcare shortages. So it's unethical.
“Secondly, we turn thousands of excellent students away from studying medicine every year because we limit their aspirations and there is a short-term mindset that says, 'Don't bother training our own home-grown talent, we'll do it ourselves.' I'll recruit from overseas.” I believe this is deeply unfair to the bright British students who could serve in the NHS.
“And thirdly, this is a long-term risk for the country because there is a global shortage of health workers, so we should not assume that we will always be able to attract this global workforce. So there's a strategic risk there as well.”
He said he sees it as “part of my job” to help reduce net migration and “reduce dependence on labor from abroad.”
Mr Streeting also gave a stern message to the NHS about its performance levels, saying: “I want to send the strongest message to the Department of Health and NHS England this side of the election. When it comes to the Treasury's cynicism about the NHS, how it spends money and for what purpose, I share the Treasury's cynicism.
“And when it comes to improving the productivity of the NHS, Rachel Reeves and I will work We are committed to improving the relationship between the Treasury and the Department of Health, but more importantly delivering better outcomes for patients and better value for taxpayers' money.” .
An internal review of NHS efficiency found hospitals were struggling to treat more people, despite higher funding and extra staff, because thousands more patients were stranded on wards with nowhere to go.
Mr Streeting said he was “inundated” with responses to his recent call to NHS staff. to tell him about “everyday work practices that push you over the edge – a waste of your time, a waste of patients' time, a waste of public money.”
He said this ranged from wasting time trying to book a holiday In legacy HR systems, the need to reorder handwritten notes that were scanned in the wrong order.
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