NHS England Update

Jerome Mayhew Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2025 Commons Chamber

[Wes Streeting]

There are 889 million reasons for GPs to be cheerful. That amount was the allocation for general practice before Christmas, and it has resulted in fruitful negotiations with GP leaders that will deliver the necessary reforms and better access for patients, particularly through online access to modern appointment booking. That is something to which we have become accustomed in every other aspect of our lives, and the NHS should be no different.

[Jerome Mayhew (Broadland and Fakenham) (Con)]

It is an inescapable fact that one top-down reform is being fixed by another—one that will last about two years, according to the statement. Although I wish the reform every success, we must recognise that the experience of the NHS in Wales shows that reform on its own is no guarantee of success. The Secretary of State rightly said that change is hard, and it is inescapable, I am afraid, that while this reform is ongoing, the NHS leadership will be hugely distracted by turf wars, redundancies and the development of new working practices. What steps will he take to prevent that distraction from having a negative effect on frontline services?

[Wes Streeting]

The Government have come in with an ambitious reform agenda. As we embark on that reform, we are cutting NHS waiting lists—we have done that five months in a row. We are reforming the GP contract—those negotiations have successfully concluded. We are about to conclude community pharmacy, too. We have put in place a transformation team who are experienced frontline leaders with demonstrable track records—particularly in the case of Sir Jim Mackey—of delivering those changed outcomes. There will always be people who say that it is too hard, too difficult or a distraction, but that is how we have ended up with this status quo; that is how the Conservative party presided over the longest waiting lists and the lowest patient satisfaction on record while spending staggering amounts of public money. More money and no reform is not the answer; the lesson of the previous Labour Government is that investment plus reform delivers results. That is what this Labour Government are doing.