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Sir Keir Starmer will tomorrow pledge to tackle the NHS bed block crisis amid new claims it cost at least £1.7 billion last year to keep patients in hospital beds they don’t need.
Blaming the ‘eye-popping bill’ for 13 years of Tory failure, Labor will instead pledge to boost the care sector ‘so that people can be looked after in the comfort of their own homes’.
But Sir Keir, who is launching Labour’s health mission, will tell his party he ‘will not put the NHS on a pedestal’ and warned that fundamental reforms were needed as well as more money.
Party sources said this was a warning to Labor traditionalists that greater private sector commitment was needed to tackle the NHS’s treatment backlogs.
Last night Tory party chairman Greg Hands hit back saying ‘Keir Starmer’s meaningless sound bites won’t do anything to reduce waiting lists’ and insisted ‘only the conservatives supply for patients’.
Sir Keir Starmer will vow to tackle NHS bed block crisis tomorrow (file image)
However, in a damning judgment on the Tory stewardship of the NHS, Labor yesterday released new figures on the magnitude of so-called ‘delayed discharges’ in England, where patients are unable to leave their hospital because care was not available in the community.
Based on NHS statistics, Sir Keir’s party said there had been more than 4.7 million such bed blocking cases in the 12 months to March 2023 – with an average of one in seven NHS beds occupied by patients waiting to go to to be sent home.
That figure also contributed to record long waiting times for ambulances and in A&E departments last winter, Labor said.
It admitted that the government had spent a further £750m over the winter on a delayed discharge fund, but claimed much of the money had only reached the NHS frontline in January.
Labor vows to fight the problem and is now promising to improve care and increase capacity by training an additional 7,500 doctors and 10,000 nurses a year.
It would also offer a new deal for healthcare providers to help deal with the record 165,000 healthcare job openings through better rights at work, fair wages and proper training.
Plans are also revealed to reduce ‘dangerous’ emergency room waiting times.
When launching his NHS reform plans tomorrow, Sir Keir will say the health service has played a huge role in his life. of her life’.
Based on NHS statistics, Sir Keir’s party said there were more than 4.7 million such bed blocking cases in the 12 months to March 2023 (file image)
But he will warn that improving it was not just a matter of money.
He will say: ‘If we in the Labor Party just put the NHS on a pedestal and leave it there, that’s not good enough.’
But Mr Hands contrasted Labour’s ‘just yelling from the sidelines’ with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s pledge to reduce NHS waiting lists as one of his five priorities for 2023.