The Health Secretary has signalled his support for more private investment to fix the NHS, while also pledging to drive down corridor care.
Wes Streeting said the Government wants to see the NHS being as “responsive as any other organisation that we use” and he wants “more patient choice, more patient power, more patient control”.
Last week, NHS England chief executive Amanda Pritchard said the Government should consider the use of private capital to fix the NHS’s crumbling buildings and infrastructure.
She said: “We need to think much more radically, particularly about capital,” adding: “I think we now must consider private capital investment in the NHS.”
Asked about more competition between NHS hospitals, and with private hospitals, Mr Streeting told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Monday: “Well, we’re definitely committed to using the independent sector spare capacity to bring down NHS waiting lists faster.
“We do think that there is a role for financial flows and incentives – that’s built into our reform plan as well.”
Pressed on whether high-performing hospitals would get more money and poor performers less, or would even be forced to shut, he said: “I certainly want more patient choice, more patient power, more patient control over where they’re seen, how they’re treated, the nature of their appointments.
“The NHS should be as responsive as any other organisation that we use, or any other service that we interact with.
“There’s a huge mountain to climb to get to that kind of NHS, and that’s why it’s important that we’re getting the basics right.
“We’re fixing the fundamentals… There’s a hell of a lot more to do now. We’re determined to make sure that 2025 is the road to recovery.”
Asked whether he is prepared to go back to private finance initiative (PFI) schemes – in which private firms built hospitals and repayments were made over the long term – he said: “Well, the Chancellor has delivered the biggest capital allocation for the NHS since Labour was last in power, but I don’t pretend that there aren’t still enormous challenges because of the size of the capital shortfall…
“So I’m actually very sympathetic to the argument that we should try and leverage in private finance.
“The big caveat I would add, however, is that, while I’m enormously proud of the record of the last Labour government, which delivered the shortest waiting times and the highest patient satisfaction in history, many of those PFI deals did lumber the NHS with an enormous cost that it continues to bear.
“So I think we’ve got to tread cautiously and carefully in this area. I think there is a role for private investment, but the terms of those arrangements – that’s where you’ve got to tread really carefully.
“But I’m open to serious proposals from the NHS, or indeed anyone else.”
Earlier, Mr Streeting said the Government has “hit the ground running on the NHS” but there is a “hell of a lot more to do”.
On Sunday evening, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced that the Government has already delivered two million extra NHS appointments – a key manifesto pledge – seven months early.
NHS England figures show that between July and November 2024 there were almost 2.2 million more appointments compared with the equivalent period in 2023.
The 2023 figures include dates when consultants and their more junior doctors were on strike, meaning fewer appointments were available for this comparison period.
Mr Streeting told BBC Breakfast on Monday: “We’ve hit the ground running on the NHS.
“I do want to reassure your viewers, though, that, yes, we are reporting back today we’ve delivered on our first step and we’ve delivered it seven months early.
“But I don’t want anyone watching to think we’re doing victory laps.
“There are still massive challenges in the NHS, a hell of a lot further to go on waiting lists, people are still struggling to get GP appointments, and GPs are struggling, let me tell you, with the case load they’ve got.
“We’ve also got big challenges on things like ambulance response times and A&E trolley corridor care, which is an indictment of the state the NHS was left in.
“So, I know there are still challenges. We’re not doing victory laps – a lot done, a hell of a lot more to do.
“I wish I could sit here now and tell you that, by next Christmas, there will be no-one waiting on a trolley in a corridor.
“I can’t make that promise, but what I can tell you is that we will deliver year-on-year improvement, and I’m determined to see an end to that kind of corridor care. I don’t think it should be allowed to be normalised.
“It has become common practice, but that doesn’t mean we should accept it as normal, or normalised, or acceptable practice.
“I understand why it’s there now, I understand what frontline NHS leaders are having to grapple with in terms of demand, but we must not allow that kind of care to be normalised in our NHS.
“It is not dignified and it is not as safe as it should be, and that’s why I’m determined to put an end to it. But it will take time.”
Some 62% of the extra two million appointments delivered by the Government was made up of outpatient appointments, 26% diagnostic tests and 12% elective operations.
Sir Keir told reporters on Monday there was a “human impact” to reaching the target seven months earlier than promised, particularly “on patients who desperately want their appointment or their operation”.
Speaking to reporters in Bristol, he added: “Of course, that central question, sort-of, trust in politics.
“We said we would do this. I’m pleased we’ve done it. I acknowledge – much more to do.”
