Streeting declares: ‘the NHS is broken’

Wes Streeting has just given a striking statement on arrival at the Department of Health and Social Care in which he announced that ‘from today, the policy of this department is that the NHS is broken’. Parties make campaign threats that there are ‘24 hours to save the NHS’, but this description of Labour’s sacred cow as ‘broken’ goes far beyond that. It recognises the seriousness of the situation for the health service and is a declaration of Streeting’s intent to reform.

Streeting has become health secretary during an existential crisis. Voters are still committed to the principles of free healthcare but increasingly losing satisfaction with the way the NHS tries to deliver that. He will be well aware that those voters will start to question their faith in the NHS itself if Labour fails to turn it around: he told staff today that ‘this government has received a mandate from millions of voters for change and reform of the NHS, so it can be there for us when we need it once again’.