Wes Streeting has defended the growing use of the private sector to tackle long waiting lists for treatment, but said providers must “pull their weight” and not take resources away from the NHS.
The health minister, who has previously said that “middle-class leftists” risk putting ideological purity above patient care, said he would be “completely pragmatic” about the use of spare capacity in the private sector.
The government announced this week that private hospitals would offer NHS patients in England as many as 1 million extra appointments, scans and operations a year as part of the drive to tackle the backlog.
“The Tories opened a two-tier system in this country, where those who could afford to pay to go private would be seen more quickly, and those who couldn’t would be left behind,” Streeting said.
“For me it is a point of principle that we put an end to that two-tier system. Where there is spare capacity in the independent sector, we will utilize it. We have agreed that we will work with them, and they will work with us, to reduce NHS waiting times.”
But he added: “At the same time, the independent sector needs to pull its weight. It really has to be about extra capacity.
“I am very pragmatic about this… The independent healthcare sector is not going anywhere and can help us get out of the hole we are in. We would be crazy not to do that.”
But the Center for Health and the Public Interest, which monitors the privatization of the NHS, said Streeting was talking “utter nonsense” about the private sector providing extra capacity, because almost all the doctors it uses to carry out operations are NHS are staff.
“Simply put, private hospitals cannot perform any surgery without using NHS consultants or anaesthetists,” the report said. “Allowing NHS consultants to do the easy work in the private sector is starving both the NHS of staff and income.”
Streeting, whose department received an extra £22 billion from the budget, said he wanted to make a “big bet on technology” in the spending review to help improve productivity in the NHS.
But he added: “NHS staff say we love what you say about AI, genomics and machine learning, but we would be grateful if we could just turn on a machine and it works in the morning.”
As part of the government’s 10-year NHS plan, due to be published this spring, Streeting wants to shift the focus from disease to prevention, with the aim of reducing the time people are chronically ill.
Streeting said his plan remains to ‘steamroll’ the food industry to promote healthier options to tackle the obesity crisis, and he is working with the sector and other Whitehall departments on a plan to be published this year.
He also said that weight loss medications should not be a “get out of jail” card for people looking to lose a few pounds, and that in return patients should improve their diet and exercise. “The evidence is enormously encouraging, but it is complicated and nuanced,” he added.
He suggested the planned shift of healthcare from hospitals to the community would not result in local facilities being closed. “The reassurance I can offer is that hospitals are indispensable in our growing aging society and have an important role to play.”
The winter crisis in the NHS continues to deepen, with more people being treated in hospital for flu and record numbers of long ambulance handover delays in A&E.
Intense pressure on the service amid Britain’s cold snap has led to patients being treated in chairs “all day and all night” and a hospital gym being converted into an overflow ward.
Last week, an average of 5,408 people in England were in hospital with flu every day – the second highest number since the Covid pandemic and a 21% increase on the 4,469 the week before.
What Streeting called a “tidal wave of flu” also led to more people receiving life-or-death care in intensive care (256) than a week earlier (211).
NHS England latest ‘winter sitreps’ dataThe study published on Thursday found that 19,554 people were stuck in the back of an ambulance for at least an hour last week before being handed over to emergency staff because hospitals were so busy. They represented 21% of all transfers, up from 13% the week before.
Doctors are concerned about chaotic conditions in overcrowded hospitals, putting patients at risk. Dr. Mashkur Khan, from the Royal College of Physicians, said: “Our physiotherapy gym has now been taken over for extra sleeping accommodations and the corridors are full to the brim. Patients are often treated in a chair all day and all night.”
Professor Sir Stephen Powis, national medical director of NHS England, said hospitals were under “exceptional pressure”, with emergency staff so stretched that some “said their days at work feel like the days we had during the peak of the pandemic” .