Some NHS patients have been given a “death sentence” due to delays within the healthcare system, Wes Streeting said, while Keir Starmer highlighted the need for greater use of AI and technology.
The Health Secretary was speaking alongside the Prime Minister at the launch of what they described as the “biggest national conversation about the future of the NHS since it was founded 76 years ago”.
But while Keir Starmer tried to strike an optimistic tone, pointing to the benefits and opportunities that could come from a public conversation, Streeting warned that the NHS is in “such a bad state, I’m surprised we’re not still homing pigeons to use” .
Streeting said: “The NHS is objectively experiencing the worst crisis in its history, whether it is people struggling to access their GP, calling 999 and an ambulance not arriving on time, rushing to the come to the emergency room and wait far too long. , sometimes on carts in the hallway, or enduring the ordeal of knowing you’re waiting for a diagnosis that could be the difference between life and death.
‘Worse still, you are given a prognosis that amounts to a death sentence that could have been avoided because the NHS did not reach you in time.
“That, I fear, is the daily reality in the NHS today.”
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Streeting said he hopes a reformed NHS app would help streamline healthcare, and be as “easy and just as fun” to use as Netflix. He advocated plans to digitalise healthcare to improve patient experience, soon giving them access to every NHS service “at the touch of a button, not at the end of a phone”.
Streeting told reporters in East London: “I think people in our country are angry because interacting with their public services is not as easy, accessible or even joyful as any other set of applications we have in the palm of our hands.
“For example, we have more subscribers to the NHS app than Netflix, so using the NHS app should be as easy and even as fun as using Netflix, and unless we embrace the technological revolution we will have a public continue to have a sector that is creaking and lags far behind all other services in our lives, because it has not kept up with the times.”
Meanwhile, Starmer cited the benefits of using artificial intelligence as he highlighted his ambition to transform the NHS and outlined his plans to reinvent NHS technology when it comes to cancer.
Speaking to the Guardian, the Prime Minister said: “Traditionally, after the Tory governments, Labor governments would pick up the NHS and give more money to get the NHS back on its feet. The ambition here is not only to make healthcare function in a certain way (better) than it has done over the past fourteen years, but to transform it.
“If you look at the challenges in 1948, in the 1940s, in the period when the NHS was founded, they were very different to the challenges today. So even without this funding challenge, you might want to rethink the NHS when it comes to cancer.
“This is where AI will be very important for us, because if you already have a radiologist working with AI and doing the scans, the chance of getting cancer (diagnoses) more accurately and much earlier will increase dramatically. . This allows us to come into contact with cancer earlier.”
New laws will be introduced on Wednesday that aim to speed up patient care, minimize medication errors and reduce repetitive medical tests.