LONDON — Health Secretary Wes Streeting says he’ll bravely “take it on the chin” as the country’s GP system continues to crumble faster than an NHS digestive in weak tea.
Speaking to Sky News with the weary defiance of a man who’s inherited a bonfire and been handed a watering can, Streeting admitted that keeping GPs in the job, stopping surgeries from shutting, and making the public hate the process slightly less will all be a “challenge” — but one he’s ready to nobly endure while everyone else endures 14-day waits for a 3-minute phone call.
It comes as Labour unveils a sweeping 10-year plan to digitise, decentralise, and detox the NHS — largely by moving services out of hospitals and into so-called “neighbourhood health centres,” which sound suspiciously like GP surgeries that no longer exist.
“We’re not doing victory laps,” said Streeting, “because, frankly, no one’s sure where the finish line is, and we’ve already lost most of the runners.”
Since Labour took office, over 60 GP practices have quietly shut up shop, and nearly six million people a month are now waiting over two weeks to see someone vaguely medical. The government has responded to this spiralling chaos with… a more powerful NHS app.
Also on the dream board: six-day-a-week neighbourhood centres open 12 hours a day, anti-junk-food laws, and a promise to restore the mythical “family doctor” who remembers your name and isn’t made entirely of pixels.
Streeting insists the new plan is about prevention, not just cure — which, if nothing else, sounds cheaper. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Starmer stood in front of some NHS bricks and declared that the “future already looks better.” He did not specify whose future.
Over in the ghost of Christmas governments past, Jeremy Hunt popped up to say that Labour’s plan looks oddly familiar — perhaps because it’s remarkably similar to the one NHS England launched in 2019, back when the only pandemic was Boris Johnson.
Hunt, trying to be gracious, said the ambition was there, but “no one’s explained how this all gets paid for,” before muttering something about COVID and implying that perhaps a little humility from Labour wouldn’t go amiss.
In fairness, if the NHS plan really is going to take a decade, the real challenge might be getting a GP to still exist by then.
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