Can Wes Streeting and Alan Milburn fix the ‘broken’ NHS?

For years, Wes Streeting has spoken about the need for NHS reform but it was never clear if he had an agenda, or this was just verbal positioning. The NHS has more staff (1.4 million) than many countries have people. Plans to reform it need to be laid out carefully, taking years to design and to implement. Getting results by Year Five of a Starmer government would mean serious action at the very start. So far, with Streeting, that is precisely what we have got.

Within hours of becoming Health Secretary, he declared that ‘from today, the policy of this department is that the NHS is broken’. Not since John Reid’s declaration that the immigration department was not ‘fit for purpose’ has a minister signalled such intent to reform.