Rishi Sunak admitted that the UK is “behind other countries” in some areas of healthcare and said there is “work to be done” to improve the NHS.
It was suggested to the Prime Minister that the NHS was heading in the wrong direction following the publication of today’s report by the King’s Fund (see post below at 10.04).
He replied: “Well, one of my top five priorities is to cut NHS waiting lists. That’s why we’ve put record sums into the NHS since I became Prime Minister, with record numbers of doctors, nurses and new ways of doing the things that start to make a difference and we see it in the numbers, but of course there is work to be done.
“But we also need to make the decisions that will modernize the NHS in the long term. Today’s example, the roll-out of lung cancer screening, will really help improve lung cancer survival rates, something where we are lagging behind from other countries, but today’s announcement will help fix that.
“But also later this week we will make a really important announcement, for the first time in its history, the NHS will have a long-term workforce plan to make sure we hire the doctors, nurses and all the other GPs and doctors staff we need in the long term, reduce our reliance on overseas trained clinical staff.
“These are the right long-term decisions for the NHS and that’s what I’m interested in doing.”
