Wes Streeting says Labour has been too nostalgic about NHS as he argues for reform – UK politics live | Politics

Labour would let opthalmologists provide tests and outpatient appointments for medical eye problems in high street opticians, a shadow health minister told the Institute for Government conference.

Filling in for Wes Streeting, who is ill, Karin Smyth said it would address the 620,000 patients currently waiting for NHS eye care, with 17,000 waiting over a year. It has previously been revealed that hundreds of NHS patients lost their eyesight following delayed appointments.

The party said it would seek to negotiate a national deal to deliver more routine outpatient care in high street opticians, using existing funds. This would include cataract pre-assessments and operation follow-ups, glaucoma monitoring, and common diagnostic tests.

Smyth said it would free up hospital specialists to treat more serious cases and provide better value for money. Labour highlighted that the plan had support from expert opthamologists. Prof Ben Burton, president of the Royal College of Opthalmologists said:

While expanding ophthalmology infrastructure and workforce capacity is essential and must be prioritised, we should also be making better use of the existing expertise and facilities in high street optical practices to manage stable, chronic conditions. The Labour party’s announcement today is therefore a positive commitment to supporting eye care patients and we would offer our clinical expertise to shape this policy if delivered in government.

Smyth also expanded on Streeting’s comments briefed overnight that Labour would wage a war on waste in the NHS, which have provoked a backlash on the Labour left. (See 9.36am, 10.22am and 11.17am.)

The shadow minister said around one in four missed outpatient appointments are due to administration issues, costing £300m a year. She also highlighted that the NHS still spends £200m a year on paper and postage, a decade after Jeremy Hunt pledged the NHS would go paperless.

In his Sun interview today Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, is argues that the NHS needs reform more than it needs extra money. (See 9.26am.) One (seemingly obvious and easy) reform would be to waste less, and in the overnight preview of his speech Labour identifies “waste” in the NHS worth billions of pounds that it suggests could be eliminated. It cites these five examples.

£1.7 billion cost of hospital beds for patients who are well enough to leave, but can’t because there is no care available in the community

£3.5 billion paid to recruitment agencies because the Conservatives have failed to train enough staff over the last 14 years

£626 million spent by the Department of Health and Social Care on management consultants

£32 million value of the pagers NHS staff are still forced to use

£1 billion of savings the NHS itself says is available through bulk-buying equipment at a cheaper rate. Currently some hospitals pay twice as much as others for equipment like scanners and surgical tools.

Streeting says:

With a government that understands the value of public money, that is brave enough to reform the NHS, that knows prevention is better than cure, the crisis in the health service can be turned around.

I am focusing on waste because I want to give the public hope that the NHS can be saved. The money that is wasted today can be used to get the NHS back on its feet tomorrow. Only Labour has a plan to reform the NHS.

In his Sun interview Streeting also claims that the NHS could save money and become more efficient by embracing technology properly. He says:

This morning DPD text-messaged to tell me this parcel was being delivered, they gave my slot and gave me the opportunity to change it.

Why is it that with the NHS you can’t turn around and say, ‘Actually, that isn’t convenient, I need to change it?’ Or you think, ‘Oh, shit, I forgot about that’.

It’s just those basic things, that basic organisation of the system. And this is not revolutionary technology.

A halving of UK government borrowing over the past year has created scope for Jeremy Hunt to make tax cuts worth about £20bn in his March budget, Larry Elliott reports.

A fresh set of US and UK airstrikes against Houthi targets in Yemen were intended to “send the clearest possible message that Britain backs its words and our warnings with action”, David Cameron, the foreign secretary, has said. Ben Quinn has the story.

Good morning. Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, is the main speaker at a conference organised by the Institute for Government thinktank today and, according to the overnight briefing, his speech will be an attack on “waste” in the NHS, and a declaration that Labour will make it more efficient. This is a relatively standard opposition party theme. The Conservatives used to say much the same when Labour was in power. But Streeting has also given an interview to the Sun to promote his message, and this will attract more attention because he has used it to accuse his own party of being too nostalgic about the NHS.

He told the paper:

I think there are times when the Labour party is led too heavily into nostalgia. It would be the easiest thing in the world to go into the next general election just saying ‘worst crisis in NHS history’, ‘you can’t trust the Tories on the NHS’, ‘you’ve got 24 hours to save the NHS’ and, by the way, here’s a nice sepia film of Nye Bevan.

When the Sun’s Harry Cole put it to Streeting that that was exactly how Labour campaigned on the NHS in elections, Streeting replied:

Well, we haven’t done very well in the last four, so I’m not planning to repeat those mistakes.

Streeting also restated an argument that he has previously made as shadow health secretary, saying that what the NHS needed most was reform, not extra money.

You can’t just keep on pouring ever-increasing amounts of money into a leaky bucket, you’ve got to deal with the bucket itself.

And on the topic of NHS funding, he told the Sun:

It’s not right to keep on asking people on low to middle incomes to pay high taxes when they’re struggling. And it’s not right that they don’t get much for the money they are putting in.

I will post more from the interview and speech shortly.

Otherwise, we have cabinet today, and we are expecting a Commons statement from Rishi Sunak on the latest air strikes against the Houthis. There is full coverage of those on our Middle East crisis live blog.

Here is the agenda for the day.

9.15am: Wes Streeting, shadow health secretary, gives a speech at the Institute for Government’s annual conference. Other participants include Kwasi Kwarteng, the Tory former chancellor, who is speaking on a panel, and John Glen, the Cabinet Office minister, who is giving a speech. The full agenda is here.

Morning: Rishi Sunak chairs cabinet.

11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.

11.30am: Victoria Atkins, the health secretary, takes questions in the Commons.

After 12.30pm: Rishi Sunak is expected to make a statement to MPs about the latest air strike against the Houthis.

After 1.30pm: MPs debate a Labour opposition day motion which, if passed, would set aside a day for the Commons to debate and pass a Labour bill on school absences that would force the government to set up a national register of children not in school.

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