'Reform or die!' Starmer unveils NHS plan as damning report exposes 'dire' service

Starmer presented three key areas of reform: shifting from analogue to digital, moving care from hospitals to communities, and focusing on prevention rather than sickness.

Speaking in Central London, the Prime Minister said: “The NHS may be broken but it is not beaten.

"As the report says, the NHS may be in a critical condition but it is vital signs are strong and we need to have the courage to deliver long-term reform.

"Major surgery not sticking plasters. We have got to face up to the challenges."

He added: "The NHS is at a fork in the road and we have a choice about how it should meet those demands. Don’t act and leave it to die.

"Raise taxes on working people or reform to secure its future. Working people can’t afford to pay more so it is reform or die.”

Lord Darzi's review, commissioned by the Government, paints a stark picture of the current state of the NHS.

The 142-page report claimed the NHS has failed to deliver on many of its key obligations to the public since 2015.

Emergency care is described as being "in an awful state", with one-in-ten patients waiting at least 12 hours to be seen in A&E.

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Waiting lists for hospital procedures have also soared from 2.4 million people in March 2010 to 7.6 million in June 2023.

Lord Darzi's report highlighted several key issues within the NHS but showed the share of its budget spent in hospitals increased from 47 percent to 58 percent between 2006 and 2022.

Social care was separately described as being in a "dire state", with a growing gap between people's needs and publicly-funded care placing a burden on families and the NHS.

The report identified three major "shocks" to the NHS over the past 15 years.

It claimed austerity led to a £37billion shortfall in capital investment compared to other countries, warned the 2012 Health and Social Care Act was "a calamity without international precedent" and revealed the coronavirus pandemic smashed the service when NHS resilience was at an all-time low.

Despite these challenges, Lord Darzi insisted that the NHS's vital signs remain strong, praising the "extraordinary depth of clinical talent" and passionate staff.

Lord Darzi's report concluded that it would take longer than one parliamentary term to restore NHS performance to acceptable levels and clear waiting lists.

He said: "Nothing that I have found draws into question the principles of a health service that is taxpayer-funded, free at the point of use, and based on need not ability to pay."

Health Secretary Wes Streeting echoed the Prime Minister's concerns about the NHS.

Speaking to GB News this morning, Streeting said: "We are not going to duck the difficult choices.

"We are not going to ignore hard truths, and we are not going to sweep the problems under the carpet.

"As a Labour Party, we are not going to get into dewy-eyed nostalgia about what the NHS was when it was created 76 years ago.

"We are going to face up to the hard choices and challenges today, so the NHS is there for us for the next 76 years and we deal with the awful situation we see today."

However, Shadow Health Secretary Victoria Atkins highlighted Labour's poor record on NHS delivery in Wales.

"The worst area in Great Britain for health outcomes on pretty much every measure is Wales," Atkins said.

"They have one-in-four of their population on NHS waiting lists. On average, a Welsh patient is waiting seven weeks longer than an English patient and they have they have 23,000 people waiting longer than two years, whereas in England we have 120 people.

"Now, that's relevant because the NHS in Wales has been run for the last 25 years by Labour.

"If they are concerned about the health measures in England, why have they not also looked at their own performance in Wales?"