Starmer’s NHS plans: will it be different this time?
22 May 2023
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Commenting Labour leader Keir Starmer’s speech on NHS reform, Dr Kristian Niemietz, Head of Political Economy at the Institute of Economic Affairs, said:
“Keir Starmer is to be commended for not doing the cheap and easy thing, which would have been regurgitating the popular but false idea that everything was fine in the NHS until the Tories took over and ran it into the ground. Even more commendable, he specifically distances himself from the false idea that the NHS’s woes can be cured solely by throwing more money and heaping more praise.
“But his ambitions for NHS reform – e.g. ‘care moves closer to home’, ‘patients have more control’ – are things that health secretaries of all parties have been saying since at least the 1980s, so it makes you wonder what will be different this time. A genuine reformer would start by acknowledging that the NHS has long been lagging behind the health systems of many of our neighbour countries, and show a willingness to learn from international best practice.”
ENDS
Notes to Editors
CONTACT: media@iea.org.uk / 07763 365520
The mission of the Institute of Economic Affairs is to improve understanding of the fundamental institutions of a free society by analysing and expounding the role of markets in solving economic and social problems. The IEA is a registered educational charity and independent of all political parties.
“Keir Starmer is to be commended for not doing the cheap and easy thing, which would have been regurgitating the popular but false idea that everything was fine in the NHS until the Tories took over and ran it into the ground. Even more commendable, he specifically distances himself from the false idea that the NHS’s woes can be cured solely by throwing more money and heaping more praise.
“But his ambitions for NHS reform – e.g. ‘care moves closer to home’, ‘patients have more control’ – are things that health secretaries of all parties have been saying since at least the 1980s, so it makes you wonder what will be different this time. A genuine reformer would start by acknowledging that the NHS has long been lagging behind the health systems of many of our neighbour countries, and show a willingness to learn from international best practice.”
ENDS
Notes to Editors
CONTACT: media@iea.org.uk / 07763 365520
The mission of the Institute of Economic Affairs is to improve understanding of the fundamental institutions of a free society by analysing and expounding the role of markets in solving economic and social problems. The IEA is a registered educational charity and independent of all political parties.
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