NHS progress on basics 'going backwards' for first time in 50 years, wide-ranging Darzi review says

8 September 2024, 23:43

The NHS is going backwards on basic health care for the first time in 50 years, a bombshell new report has claimed.

The report by Lord Ara Darzi, a former health minister and surgeon, criticises waiting times for infants in A&E and how routine health services were stopped during the Covid pandemic.

Lord Darzi is set to highlight that deaths from heart disease are rising for the first time since the 1970s - as well as the waiting time for treatment.

Speaking exclusively on Sunday with Lewis Goodall, Health Secretary Wes Streeting said that if Labour doesn't act now, the country will see "the NHS effectively going bust".

Streeting confirmed to LBC that he still believes the Government can bring NHS waiting lists "down by millions" in the next five years and stood by his "constitutional commitments".

He also claimed the report revealed the NHS was "so badly prepared and resourced before the pandemic, we ended up cancelling more operations and appointments and procedures than any other major country".

Lord Darzi's landmark review is due to be published on Thursday.

The wide-ranging report is already expected to reveal that more than 100,000 infants aged under two were forced to wait more than six hours in A&E departments across England last year.

Speaking with LBC on the matter, Streeting rejected attacks on Dr Dhazi's integrity, labelling them "disappointing".

Watch again: Health Secretary Wes Streeting speaks to Lewis Goodall

Darzi, a top surgeon, former Labour minister, and peer, stepped down from parliament in July 2019 to sit as an independent following antisemitism claims within the party.

The report is set to be a guiding document for Labour's 10-year plan to reform the health service.

In an interview with the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg, Sir Keir Starmer said Lord Darzi was “really clear that the NHS is broken but not beaten”.

“His diagnosis, and my conclusion, is that the only way out of this now is reform,” Sir Keir said.

“I think only a Labour government can reform the NHS and therefore we will use his diagnosis as the platform for the reform that we now need to carry out in relation to the NHS.”