Wes Streeting’s NHS vision doesn’t go far enough

The NHS is facing an existential crisis, the shadow health secretary Wes Streeting said last week. The health service needs to ‘reform or die’. Cue the backlash.

Sam Tarry, the recently-deselected Labour MP, expressed ‘dismay’ over his colleague’s comments on the health service, while Diane Abbott has warned her Twitter followers that Streeting is ‘trying to push for a privatised/insurance-based NHS’.

After his remarks, the shadow health secretary admitted that he was now out of favour with several of his Labour party colleagues, but said he had received ‘some kind words from unexpected sources’ – namely writers in the Times and Telegraph – following his speech. And he hasn’t yet tried to pedal back on his ‘reformist’ ideas, holding a question-answer session at centre-right think tank Policy Exchange on Friday, titled: ‘A roadmap to double medical school places.