Streeting says he won’t be able to guarantee patient safety in NHS if resident doctors’ strike goes ahead
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, is being interviewed on on LBC. The presenter is Nick Ferrari.
Streeting said the flu was putting the NHS under the worst pressure since Covid.
There is a particularly aggressive strain of flu around, he said.
He said he would be “extremely worried” about this if there were no strikes.
But, with the “double whammy” of flu and strikes, he thinks the situation is “dangerous”.
Streeting said he was so worried about this he told the BMA that he would extend their strike mandate, allowing them to strike in January, because that would be preferable to a strike before Christmas.
But they refused the offer, Streeting said. He said he could not understand that, given the risk it poses for patients.
Q: If midnight is the collapse of the NHS, how close to midnight are we? One minute?
Streeting says he would say that.
There are only a finite number of doctors and staff. With strikes and flu and trolleys on corridor and demand going up, “I don’t think there is a lever I can pull … [to] guarantee patient safety,” he said.
UPDATE: Streeting said:
The thing I’m genuinely fearful of is that, even if I throw more money at this situation now, at this time, to get through the next week on strikes, there’s only a finite number of doctors and staff.
There’s only a finite number of care home beds and community based care. So if you’ve got strikes and you’ve got flu and you’ve got all of these trolleys on corridors, and you’ve got demand going up rather than down, I just don’t think there is a lever I can pull, I don’t think there’s an amount of money I can throw, that means I can sit on your programme and guarantee patient safety over the next week.
That’s a pretty terrifying position, not just for me to be in, but for the doctors and NHS staff who are confronting that challenge to be in, because they are the ones that are going to be bearing it on the on the front line.
Key events
I have beefed up the post at 9.08am to include the direct quote from Wes Streeting about not being able to guarantee patient safety in the NHS if the strike by resident doctors in England goes ahead. You may need to refresh the page to get the update to appear.
Streeting says he was not criticising Starmer when he complained about government’s ‘technocratic’ approach
In his LBC phone-in, when asked about his New Statesman interview (see 9.43am), Wes Streeting, the health secretary, also insisted that his comments about the government’s “technocratic approach” were not a criticism of Keir Starmer. He said:
No, it’s not criticism of the prime minister.
I think it is a challenge to all of us, because all of us in government and in the cabinet in particular, have a responsibility to get the government’s message across, and sometimes, I think what we’re guilty of is coming on and listing a whole load of stuff we’ve done.
Now that’s a good thing, because we’ve done loads of stuff since the elections to deliver our manifesto.
The problem with a big, long shopping list is you can’t always remember what’s on it, and people walk away thinking, ‘I kind of heard some stuff they’re doing, but can’t quite remember what it’s about’.
We’ve got to be much better at putting an account of what this government is about and who it is for.
And this is what Streeting compared child deaths in temporary accommodation linked to poverty to the actions of a child killer (see 9.43am) as an example of how to explain policy vividly.
Ferrari asks Streeting about his New Statesman interview comments complaining about the government’s “technocratic” approach.
Streeting says there are a lot of good things that the government is doing. But people don’t always appreciate them.
As an example, he cites Steve Reed, the housing secretary, saying that something like 60 children have died living in temporary accommodation.
He goes on:
Now, if a serial killer had killed over 60 children in our country over that length of time, it would be splashed on the front of every newspaper. We would remember the name of that killer for the rest of our lives.
But in this case, children are quietly dying. Their parents do not have a megaphone or a microphone, and they are dying in shabby temporary accommodation.
Streeting says the government is lifting half a million children out of poverty.
And the homelessness strategy published yesterday includes a specific commitment to reduce the number of families trapped in this sort of accommodation.
Streeting rules out challenging Starmer on joint ticket with Angela Rayner
Q: Can you rule out challenging Keir Starmer on a joint ticket with Angela Rayner?
Yes, says Streeting.
Streeting admits he’s ‘not comfortable’ with allowing puberty blockers trial, but defends following clinicians’ advice
Q: You are allowing a trial of puberty blockers for children questioning their gender. Some children involved will be as young as 10. Why are you allowing this?
Streeting says in her report Hilary Cass uncovered a shocking lack of evidence about the effectiveness of these treatments.
As a result, the government stopped the use of puberty blockers, and Streeting says he extended this.
But Cass also recommended a trial, he says.
He admits he is “not comfortable” about this going ahead.
But he says, in allowing it to go ahead, he is following the clinical advice.
He says he is uncomfortable about the idea of stopping puberty.
But he says other countries use these drugs. There is some evidence that it is better than leaving trans people withot treatment, and all the distress that comes with that.
This does not sit comfortably with him, he says.
But, as a politician, he does not want to interfer with clinicians who know far more about this topic than he does.
Streeting says he regrets some of the language he has used about BMA
Q: Is the BMA more of a political organisation than a health organisation?
Streeting says it feels like that, but he says he does not want to go over that again today.
Q: Do you regret calling the BMA “moaning minnies” and accusing them of “juvenile delinquency”?
Not really, says Streeting.
He says he was angry because figures show that patient satisfaction with access to GPs has gone up by 60% to 75%.
But, instead of welcoming this, the BMA was still opposing measures to extend online consultations.
But Streeting says he wants to turn over a new leaf in terms of relations with the BMA in the new year.
He says the BMA chair recently apologised for some intemperate language,.
In that spirit, Streeting says, he want to reciprocate. “I regret some of the things I have said too,” he says.
The first caller is a resident doctor who asks why he should listen to Wes Streeting when Streeting called him a juvenile delinquent.
(Streeting actually said that about the BMA.)
Streeting is now talking about the measures the government is taking to help resident doctors. He explained this in an article in the Times. Here is an extract.
I haven’t just listened to resident doctors’ complaints about the competition for jobs. I agree with them.
It used to be that resident doctors competed amongst themselves for specialty training places — the next rung on the ladder in a medic’s career. Thanks to obscure immigration and visa changes introduced by the Conservatives post-Brexit, they now compete with the world’s doctors.
In 2019, there were around 12,000 applicants for 9,000 specialty training places. This year, that has soared to over 30,000 applicants for 10,000 places.
Taxpayers shell out £4bn a year to train doctors. It is in all of our interests to protect our investments and stop them going offshore.
If our offer is accepted, we will introduce emergency legislation to prioritise UK medical graduates for foundation and specialty training places. International talent will always have a home in our NHS. But this will return us to the fair terms doctors competed on before Brexit.
Along with an extra 4,000 specialty places, including 1,000 this year, the changes will be real and immediate for this year’s applicants. Instead of four doctors competing for every training post, it will now be fewer than two doctors for every place.
After explaining this on LBC, Streeting says he would love to apply for a job with a one in two chance of getting it.
Ferrari jokes that it is best not to get into the topic of what jobs Streeting might want to apply for.
Streeting says he won’t be able to guarantee patient safety in NHS if resident doctors’ strike goes ahead
Wes Streeting, the health secretary, is being interviewed on on LBC. The presenter is Nick Ferrari.
Streeting said the flu was putting the NHS under the worst pressure since Covid.
There is a particularly aggressive strain of flu around, he said.
He said he would be “extremely worried” about this if there were no strikes.
But, with the “double whammy” of flu and strikes, he thinks the situation is “dangerous”.
Streeting said he was so worried about this he told the BMA that he would extend their strike mandate, allowing them to strike in January, because that would be preferable to a strike before Christmas.
But they refused the offer, Streeting said. He said he could not understand that, given the risk it poses for patients.
Q: If midnight is the collapse of the NHS, how close to midnight are we? One minute?
Streeting says he would say that.
There are only a finite number of doctors and staff. With strikes and flu and trolleys on corridor and demand going up, “I don’t think there is a lever I can pull … [to] guarantee patient safety,” he said.
UPDATE: Streeting said:
The thing I’m genuinely fearful of is that, even if I throw more money at this situation now, at this time, to get through the next week on strikes, there’s only a finite number of doctors and staff.
There’s only a finite number of care home beds and community based care. So if you’ve got strikes and you’ve got flu and you’ve got all of these trolleys on corridors, and you’ve got demand going up rather than down, I just don’t think there is a lever I can pull, I don’t think there’s an amount of money I can throw, that means I can sit on your programme and guarantee patient safety over the next week.
That’s a pretty terrifying position, not just for me to be in, but for the doctors and NHS staff who are confronting that challenge to be in, because they are the ones that are going to be bearing it on the on the front line.
Rachel Reeves to blame for economy shrinking before budget, Tories claim
Good morning. Growth figures out today show the economy shrinking in October. This is worse than economists were expecting.
Richard Partington has the story here.
Here is the start of his story.
Britain’s economy shrank unexpectedly in October as consumers held back on spending before Rachel Reeves’s budget and car manufacturing struggled to recover from the cyber-attack on Jaguar Land Rover.
Figures from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) showed gross domestic product fell by 0.1%, after a 0.1% drop in output in September. City economists had predicted a 0.1% rise in October.
After a fourth consecutive month without growth, economists said the latest snapshot would probably cement a Bank of England interest rate cut next week amid fading inflationary pressures, fears over the sluggish outlook, and rising unemployment.
“The UK economy has faltered more dramatically than we expected,” said Andrew Wishart, senior UK economist at Berenberg. “This loss of momentum will bring inflation down more swiftly than we previously anticipated, allowing the BoE to act.”
And Graeme Wearden has more on his business live blog.
Mel Stride, the shadow chancellor, issued this statement about the news.
This morning’s news that the economy unexpectedly shrank in the three months to October is extremely concerning but it’s as a direct result of Labour’s economic mismanagement.
Rachel Reeves promised growth but Labour has no plan for the economy – just their own survival, that’s why Reeves presented a Benefits Budget that rewards welfare not work.
For months, Rachel Reeves has misled the British public. She said she wouldn’t raise taxes on working people – she broke that promise again. She insisted there was a black hole in the public finances – but there wasn’t.
But within 20 minutes Stride was contradicted by his own leader, who said the fall in GDP was not unexpected. In her ‘I told you so’ message on social media, Kemi Badenoch said:
It wasn’t unexpected.
As I said at the time, the chancellor’s shambolic dishonesty in the run-up to the budget, slowed down economic activity and killed growth.
Here is the agenda for the day.
9am: Wes Streeting, the health secretary, has a phone-in on LBC.
10am: Peers resume their committee stage debate on the assisted dying bill.
11.30am: Downing Street holds a lobby briefing.
Afternoon: Keir Starmer meets the Belgian PM, Bart De Wever, in Downing Street.
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