Everything you missed from Keir Starmer's big NHS plan - from phone app to jabs
Keir Starmer declared the NHS at a 'turning point in its history' as he launched a landmark 10-year plan to reform the health service.
Ahead of the 77th anniversary of the creation of the health service on Saturday, the PM promised not only to fix the NHS's problems to 'seize opportunities". He set out major plans to shift care from hospitals to the community and use technology to transform the health service.
Among the reforms, an enhanced NHS app will be made available to patients for them to be able to book appointments, order prescriptions or access their data.
Access to weight-loss jabs will also be widened to reduce obesity, with suggestions people could soon get them via shopping centres. The levy on fizzy drinks will also be reformed, while mandatory health food sales reporting for all large companies in the food sector will be introduced.
The blueprint for the NHS's future comes after Labour declared the health service 'broken' when it was elected last year. Mr Starmer said the "future already looks better for the NHS" under Labour, as he praised 'record investment right across the system' under this Government.
READ MORE: Keir Starmer's plan to 'rewire' NHS explained – why you won't have to go to hospital
Speaking to NHS workers and reporters at a health centre in east London, he said: 'For 77 years, 77 years this weekend, the NHS has been the embodiment, if you like, of British pride, of hope, that basic sense of fairness and decency.
'77 years of everyone paying in, working hard, doing the right thing, secure in the knowledge that if they or their family needs it, the NHS will be there for them. In 10 years' time, when this plan has run its course, I want people to say that this was the moment, this was the government to secure those values for the future.'
Mr Starmer assured people the Government was already 'starting on the change' to improve the health service, with Brits to feel the change during the ten-year period, not only at the end.
Challenged on staff shortages in the NHS, the PM said NHS staff and the communities they serve had been 'widely' consulted on the plan. 'This plan we're launching today was not something the government wrote up and sort of imposed top down… That's why I know that it is achievable, deliverable,' he said.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting told NHS staff gathered at the event that Labour rejected the "pessimism" which says the "NHS is a burden, too expensive, inferior to the market".
Chancellor Rachel Reeves said: "Our 10-year plan will get the NHS back on its feet and make it fit for the future, led by our fantastic NHS staff, and a huge thank you to every single one of you."
Health experts praised the plan and agreed 'radical change' was needed, but some raised concerns about the 'financial situation' affecting the ability to implement the plan. Gemma Peters, chief executive at Macmillan Cancer Support, said: 'This vision to bring care closer to home is what both the public and the NHS need. Without radical change, the NHS cannot meet this growing demand."
Prof Kamila Hawthorne, chair of the Royal College of GPs, said: 'As a College we're enthusiastic about the focus on technology outlined in today's vision, but it can't be escaped that current NHS IT infrastructure is in urgent need of improvement."
But Thea Stein, chief executive of leading health thinktank the Nuffield Trust, said the plan 'assumes' increasing tech use and focusing on prevention will save money, but she warned this might not come to fruition.
'Care closer to home doesn't mean care on the cheap and technology has a long history of costing health services more, not less,' she said. "What's more, where previous plans have been backed by significant extra funds, the hope and prayer here is that the NHS can achieve this extraordinary transformation without much new money. "
Sarah Woolnough, chief executive of the King's Fund, added: "There are more than 150 pages of a vision of how things could be different in the NHS by 2035, but nowhere near enough detail about how it will be implemented."
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