Summary
Keir Starmer says the NHS is in a critical condition, but there will be no extra money without reform
Responding to a damning report into the health service, the PM says the NHS is broken but not beaten
Earlier, Health Secretary Wes Streeting said three "big shifts" were needed: a move from hospital to community care; from analogue to digital; and from treating sickness to preventing it
The report – by surgeon and former Labour minister Lord Darzi – found "ballooning" waiting times and delays in A&E and cancer care - read a summary here
The Conservatives say the NHS needs to "reform, modernise and improve productivity" to thrive in its next 75 years
Live Reporting
Edited by Jamie Whitehead
What's in Lord Darzi's report?published at 09:42 British Summer Time 12 September
09:42 BST 12 September
The NHS report published today came after a nine-week review by independent peer and surgeon Lord Darzi, who was asked by Labour, shortly after the election, to identify the failings in the health service.
The report reveals a stark picture of a service which he says is in a "critical condition" and "serious trouble". Here's a look at some of the key findings:
- A&E is in an "awful state", with long waits likely to be causing an additional 14,000 more deaths a year, according to the Royal College of Emergency Medicine
- The state of the NHS is not entirely due to what has happened within the health service, but also because the health of the nation has deteriorated – for example bringing a surge in long-term mental health conditions
- Rising levels of illness are risking economic prosperity, with 2.8 million people unable to work because of poor health
- The UK has higher cancer mortality rates than other countries
- Although hospital staff numbers have increased since the pandemic, the number of appointments and procedures hasn't because "patients no longer flow through hospitals as they should"
- The NHS has been starved of capital investment, meaning "crumbling buildings", mental health patients in "Victoria-era cells infested with vermin" and "parts of the NHS operating in decrepit portacabins"
Read more here.
Report 'unsurprising' but 'deeply sobering', BMA sayspublished at 09:22 British Summer Time 12 September
09:22 BST 12 September
The British Medical Association (BMA) says the NHS report reveals "how broken our beloved NHS has become", adding that the "devastating impact on our patients is deeply sobering".
General practice is in crisis, the union says, driven by not enough GPs and a growing demand because of patients returning repeatedly while waiting for secondary care.
BMA council chair Prof Philip Banfield is urging the new government to take swift action to fund GPs properly, restore doctors' pay, and reverse policy decisions that make working conditions undesirable and contribute to doctors leaving.
"Without radical action, the NHS won’t survive," he says in a statement.
Health secretary responds to NHS reportpublished at 09:03 British Summer Time 12 September
09:03 BST 12 September
Health Secretary Wes Streeting has been speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme and BBC Breakfast about Lord Darzi's report, which says the NHS is in a "critical condition". Here's the key lines from those interviews:
- The NHS is in a "vicious cycle", Streeting said, with spending "ballooning"
- The three "big shifts" Streeting said he wants to see in order to fix the NHS are hospital to community care, analogue to digital, and from treating sickness to preventing it
- He confirmed hospitals will receive proportionately less money going forward, with more funding channelled into community services
- He likened recruiting more staff without addressing other issues to hiring more pilots without giving them planes to fly
- The government still plans to continue the former government's scheme of building dozens of new hospitals, but Streeting said it might take longer
Prime Minister Keir Starmer will also be speaking about the Darzi report at a news conference later this morning – we'll be bringing you updates here.
Review shows child health services in 'crisis' – paediatricianspublished at 08:49 British Summer Time 12 September
08:49 BST 12 September
We're getting more reaction in now – this time from the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH).
The RCPCH says the Darzi review findings "confirm the concerns our members have been raising for years - our child health services are in crisis".
See AlsoArsenal news LIVE: Latest updates from the EmiratesOffensive Weapons Act 2019: statutory guidance – draft for consultation (accessible version)List of board members’ interests: March 2020How To: Ford F-150 2007-2019 TPMS Reset /RelearnChildren are "sicker than before", with rising rates of obesity, asthma, diabetes, and worsening mental health. Kids are waiting longer than adults to access healthcare, with a growing gap between demand and capacity.
"Without urgent action, we will have a two-tier healthsystem, where adult services continue to improve but children’s services areleft behind," the group's officer for health services, Dr Ronny Cheung, says.
The group has recommended reinvesting in community health services and reducing pressure on urgent and emergency care, among other solutions, to help.
Streeting: 'We don't want an NHS with a country attached'published at 08:31 British Summer Time 12 September
08:31 BST 12 September
Asked if the government will continue to spend more on health and social care, Streeting tells the Today programme his focus is on improving productivity and reducing demand on the NHS.
The costs of the NHS could "dwarf" other areas of government spending, Streeting fears, and "we'll end up with an NHS with a country attached".
"We've got to make sure every penny that goes in [to the NHS] is well spent," he adds.
That brings us to the end of Streeting's interview – stay with us for analysis and reaction.
Work has already begun to reduce waiting lists, Streeting sayspublished at 08:28 British Summer Time 12 September
08:28 BST 12 September
Streeting is now asked what he will do to reduce waiting lists.
He says he has begun work on this through negotiating a deal to end strikes, which junior doctors are now voting on, and by increasing available appointments in the evenings and weekends.
Streeting then lists a number of examples of "pioneering work" being done in some NHS trusts and says those are examples that show why reforming the system will work.
He is then pushed on whether he will redirect money earmarked for the workforce to capital spending, to which he replies: "We've got to do both."
Why are so many people too ill to work?published at 08:24 British Summer Time 12 September
08:24 BST 12 September
Streeting is now asked about why 2.8 million people are economically inactive because of health reasons, a rise of 800,000 on pre-pandemic numbers.
"We have a sickness in our society," Streeting says.
"I think we have got deaths of despair, particularly among young men, which we should be deeply anxious about as a society."
He says sitting on NHS waiting lists, off work, has "deleterious" impacts on mental health.
If we fail to flatten the curve of cost and demand in the long term, the "NHS will go bust".
He says he has two challenges - confronting the immediate crisis and taking the right long-term decisions.
- Read more about the UK's growing number of "economically inactive" people here
NHS in vicious cycle - Streetingpublished at 08:19 British Summer Time 12 September
08:19 BST 12 September
Streeting tells our colleagues on Today there is a "vicious cycle" in which day-to-day spending has "ballooned out of control" because the money is not going to the right areas.
That means, he says, the capital and technology budgets are being "raided" to plug those gaps, which then has knock-on effects.
"Investment has to go alongside reform," he says.
Streeting on BBC Radio 4's Todaypublished at 08:12 British Summer Time 12 September
08:12 BST 12 September
Next up, Health Secretary Wes Streeting is speaking to BBC Radio 4's Today programme.
We'll bring you the key lines here, but you can also follow our live stream by pressing watch live at the top of this page.
Image source, ReutersSolution isn't pouring money or people into NHS, prof sayspublished at 08:09 British Summer Time 12 September
08:09 BST 12 September
We've been hearing reaction to the NHS report's findings on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
Prof Sir John Bell, president of the Ellison Institute of Technology Oxford, tells the programme that his answer to reforming the NHS is not “pouring more money or indeed pouring more people into the system”.
He doesn’t believe the NHS is underfunded, but “we need to get better at using the money”.
“If you want to crank the handle faster, you can’t do it without the bits of kit - better diagnostics, better lab facilities, better radiology facilities, and better and bigger hospitals,” he says.
He says the solution to fixing the NHS involves having people do things differently and moving things into the community to “try and keep things out of hospital wherever we can and use a whole range of innovations to do that”.
What’s new about Labour’s thinking? We'll have to wait to find outpublished at 07:55 British Summer Time 12 September
07:55 BST 12 September
Hugh Pym
Health editorLord Darzi was asked to provide a diagnosis rather than come up with policy proposals.
He says it will be up to the government to make political choices about the future of the NHS.
Sir Keir Starmer will today talk about shifting resources from hospitals to community care, better use of technology and more effective prevention of ill health. But these are not new ideas.
They have been talked about by health experts and politicians for some time. So what’s new about Labour’s thinking? What will reform look like? We may have to wait a little while to find out.
A 10 year plan won’t be published till the spring of next year.
Did the government consider health risk of cutting winter fuel payment?published at 07:48 British Summer Time 12 September
07:48 BST 12 September
People know the NHS will take time to fix, Streeting says. "Some distasteful medicine is a damn sight better than not having the medicine at all," he says.
On the subject of the winter fuel allowance being scrapped for millions of pensioners, Streeting is pressed on whether the government carried out health assessments on the potential risk to elderly people.
He avoids the question, and repeats lines about tough decisions and pensioners being better off overall.
Streeting says: "I'm going hell for leather to get the NHS back to what's known as the constitutional standards, the targets it sets for itself, over the five-year period that we committed to, and to make sure that by the end of this Parliament we see waiting lists millions lower than they are today."
With that, the interview ends. But Streeting's busy morning continues – he is due to speak to the Today programme over on BBC Radio 4 in just under half an hour.
'It's like hiring more pilots without giving them planes'published at 07:43 British Summer Time 12 September
07:43 BST 12 September
As we reported earlier, hospital staff numbers have risen "sharply", the Darzi report says.
But Streeting tells us that recruiting more staff without addressing other issues is "a bit like British Airways recruiting a bunch of pilots but giving them no planes to fly".
The government's programme will be about making use of data, medical technology and life sciences to give NHS staff better tools, he says.
He is now asked whether the government will be building new hospitals.
Streeting says the previous government's hospital building plan is under review, and the Labour government will have a timetable for buildings and other improvements in due course.
Some of the plans were new units as opposed to new hospitals, Streeting adds, but he is "determined to deliver those schemes".
However he goes onto say "I might have to do it over a longer period of time".
Streeting says hospitals will receive proportionally lesspublished at 07:40 British Summer Time 12 September
07:40 BST 12 September
Streeting is pressed on the government's plan to move care out of hospitals and into the community.
Does that mean less money for hospitals and more money into community services, Streeting is asked?
Yes, Streeting replies, "as a proportion of NHS budget we want to shift the balance in favour of neighbourhood services".
He says the reason for queues of ambulances outside hospitals is because of pressures outside the hospital.
Pressed on exactly how much less money hospitals will get (as a proportion of the budget), Streeting says those plans will be outlined in the budget and spending reviews.
"The first port of call will be primary care and community services...we've got to deal with systemic problems in health and care services."
Streeting identifies three 'big shifts' to fix NHSpublished at 07:36 British Summer Time 12 September
07:36 BST 12 September
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, says today's report is about providing the doctor's diagnosis to lead to a major recovery and reform programme of the NHS.
He says there will be three "big shifts":
- from hospital to community care
- from analogue to digital
- from treating sickness to preventing it
Streeting says the challenges facing the NHS immediately must be resolved, as well as the service being prepared for the future.
Streeting speaking about NHS report on BBC Breakfastpublished at 07:33 British Summer Time 12 September
07:33 BST 12 September
Health Secretary Wes Streeting is speaking now to BBC Breakfast.
We'll bring you the key lines here - stay with us. And press watch live above to see the interview.
More nurses but fewer appointments – reportpublished at 07:31 British Summer Time 12 September
07:31 BST 12 September
As we reported earlier, the Conservatives point out the NHS budget did increase under the last government.
The report says that hospital staff numbers increased "sharply" between 2019 and 2023, rising by 17%. That includes 35% more nurses working with adults and 75% more working with children than 15 yearsago.
But, Lord Darzi's report says, the number of appointments, operations and procedures "has notincreased at the same pace and so productivity has fallen".
The reason is that "patients no longer flow through hospitals as theyshould".
The report says "a desperate shortage of capital prevents hospitals being productive. And the dire state of social care means 13% of NHS beds are occupied by peoplewaiting for social care support or care in more appropriate settings."
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Reforming NHS a massive challenge for Starmer's governmentpublished at 07:26 British Summer Time 12 September
07:26 BST 12 September
Nick Triggle
Health correspondentAcross more than 150 pages, Lord Darzi sets out in clear, painstaking detail the failings of the NHS in England.
This is the easy bit – what to do about it is, of course, the unanswered question.
The government is promising a complete “reimagining” of the NHS. There are hints in what is being said today what that will mean – digital revolution, moving care out of hospitals and into the community and a greater emphasis on preventing people becoming ill in the first place.
But these are all things that have been talked about for the past 20 years. In fact, Lord Darzi produced a report in 2007 recommending just this when he was working for the Blair government.
Most experts agree changing the NHS will take upfront investment – but the problem successive governments have found is that ever-growing demands on the health service means any extra money gets swallowed up ensuring the NHS can run day-to-day.
This is certainly one of the biggest challenge facing the Starmer administration.
Read more about the NHS report's findings.
Why did the government order a review of the NHS?published at 07:10 British Summer Time 12 September
07:10 BST 12 September
One week after Labour won the general election, Wes Streeting said he had been “genuinely stunned” by NHS failings after becoming health secretary.
He said he wanted a review of health services so that “we can spell out really clearly, really transparently, the scale of the failure in the NHS”.
Streeting's announcement came as waiting time figures for the NHS showed the backlog for hospital care had gone up again - hitting 7.6m.
We'll hear from the health secretary later this hour - you'll be able to watch live by pressing play at the top of the page.
Labour needs move from rhetoric to action – Conservativespublished at 07:05 British Summer Time 12 September
07:05 BST 12 September
Image source, EPAConservative shadow health secretary Victoria Atkins says her party will review the NHS report, but accuses the Labour government of failing to "put together meaningful plans for reform".
She defends the Tory's government's record, pointing out the NHS budget was increased during the last Parliament.
"The Labour government will be judged on its actions," she says.
"It has stopped new hospitals from being built, scrapped our social care reforms and taken money from pensioners to fund unsustainable pay rises with no gains in productivity.
"They need to move from rhetoric to action."
