British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday promised to completely reform the public health system within ten years, after the publication of a damning report which highlighted the "critical state" of this institution revered by the Britons.
Difficulties in getting an appointment with a doctor, long waiting lists for hospital treatment, overflowing emergency rooms: the National Health Service (NHS), created shortly after the Second World War to provide free care to all, is now only a shadow of its former self.
Its recovery emerged as a major issue in the election campaign that brought Keir Starmer to power last July and Labour has made it one of its priorities.
On Thursday he announced plans to carry out "the biggest overhaul" of the NHS since it was set up, following the publication of a government-commissioned report earlier this summer.
"The NHS may be broken but it is not broken" and "this government is working to set out a ten-year plan" that will be "different to anything that has been done before", the Prime Minister said.
The 142-page report released Thursday concludes that the functioning of the public health service has deteriorated over the past 15 years and that it is in a "critical state".
And the causes are multiple, according to its author, Ara Darzi, a surgeon and independent member of the House of Lords, the upper house of Parliament: lack of investment, ineffective attempts at reorganization, the Covid-19 pandemic.
The report also highlights the increase in the number of patients suffering from long-term illnesses, such as diabetes and high blood pressure.
He points out that the UK has a higher incidence rate of cancer than other European countries, with huge waiting lists of patients seeking treatment.
Finally, he notes that 10% of people who arrive at the emergency room wait more than twelve hours before being seen by a caregiver.
"Although I have worked in the NHS for over 30 years, I was shocked by what I discovered," Ara Darzi said in a statement.
– “A generation’s” task –
"What we need is the courage to implement long-term reform: major surgery, not band-aid solutions," Mr Starmer said.
"The NHS is at a crossroads," he insisted, repeating attacks on the Conservatives made during the last election campaign.
The Tories "have inflicted (on the NHS) what the report described as the most austere decade since the foundation" of this health system, the Prime Minister hammered home.
He presented the "three big changes" with the aim of "fixing the NHS": the move to digital to improve the productivity of the system and of carers, the development of outpatient care to relieve congestion in hospitals and prevention.
"This means more tests, X-rays, care offered" outside the hospital or even "long-term investments in new technologies that will help us detect and avoid problems earlier," he listed.
"The task before us is one of a generation," Starmer said, promising to work with doctors and carers, who have gone on strike in the past two years, to demand pay rises and more resources, particularly more staff.
"The change could be the biggest reinvention of our NHS since its birth," said the Prime Minister, who assured that he did not want to "increase taxes on workers".
During the election campaign, all political parties promised to fix the NHS. But their commitments were "unfunded", the Institute for Fiscal Studies think tank pointed out.
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