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Today’s major report by peer and NHS surgeon Lord Darzi on the National Health Service aims to perform three very clear political tasks.
The first is to set expectations that the service will not be fixed by the time of the next election by talking about a 10-year, two-parliament programme for change.
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The second is to prepare the ground for more money to go into the NHS – something Sir Keir Starmer appeared to explicitly signal today.
The third is to change the way we think about what’s needed for the NHS.
This means moving away from the way the Tories’ talk about NHS reform – stop focusing on new hospitals as a goal in of themselves and framing social care reform as a means of freeing up NHS beds rather than protecting middle-class wealth, for instance.
Today, we did not learn the shape of a reborn NHS. Instead, we were treated to some naked politics by a prime minister trying to condition and calm expectations.
The most significant thing from Sir Keir’s interpretation of the report was an apparent acknowledgement that, in time, more money – presumably reasonable sums of more money – will be needed.
Addressing the King’s Fund thinktank, the prime minister said: “A Labour government will always make the investment in our NHS that is needed. Always. But we have to fix the plumbing before turning on the taps.
“So, hear me when I say this, no more money without reform.”
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