Budget 2024: NHS is ‘on its face’, Wes Streeting warns as Rachel Reeves prepares tax raid to fund crisis-hit system

Speaking to Eamonn Holmes and Nana Akua, Streeting said there is “no beating around the bush” when it comes to discussing the “dire” state the NHS finds itself in.

“It’s the worst crisis in the NHS’s history, objectively”, he said.

“There’s no beating around the bush. Whether it’s the size of the waiting list or not being able to guarantee whether an ambulance turns up on time, the struggle to get a GP appointment or dentist, the waits in A&E.

“The NHS is not just on its knees, it’s on its face. Tomorrow’s Budget will give us the chance to arrest that decline and mark a turning point in the history of the NHS and the decline we have seen in the last 14 years.

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“Today, we’re talking about the delivery of our manifesto commitment to cut waiting lists.

“40,000 more appointments each week is our first step and we are already ramping up towards that.

“This week, we have crack teams of top clinicians going into the 20 hospitals across the country with the highest waiting lists and the highest levels of people locally off work and off sick.

“The money coming in the Budget will enable us to deliver our manifesto commitment of doubling the number of scanners across the course of this Parliament.”

Reeves is expected to pump billions of pounds into the health service, including £1.5 billion for new surgical hubs and scanners and £70 million for radiotherapy machines.

An additional £1.8 billion has been allocated for elective appointments since July and the Treasury indicated “billions of pounds” would be invested in technology to help boost productivity across the health service.

Asked if the Budget would “fix the NHS”, Reeves said: “I don’t think in one Budget you can undo 14 years of damage, but in this Budget we’re going to provide the resource necessary to deliver on our manifesto commitment to 40,000 additional appointments every single week, to reduce the huge backlog and as well as the increase in the capital budget to take it to its highest level since 2010 to invest in the new scanners and the radiography equipment.”

Asked by Nana about NHS “waste”, Streeting said: “I will be setting out steps in the coming weeks to make sure that along with the extra investment coming in, we will be taking a long, hard look at where money is already spent.

“One of the benefits of the big conversation I launched last week was to ask the frontline to give us examples of where they see waste and inefficiencies.”