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Sir Keir Starmer has faced a backlash over plans to tackle “bureaucratic nonsense” in the NHS, as the Labor leader risks deepening a row within his party as he bids to win the center stage ahead of the general election.
The Opposition Leader said inefficiencies in the NHS were creating a “mind-boggling waste of time” and said he wanted to allow patients to be able to bypass GPs and self-refer to specialists.
The British Medical Association (BMA) said Labor did not “understand” the vital role of GPs, while leading NHS campaigner Dr Rachel Clarke called Sir Keir’s proposal “monumentally stupid”.
Despite Sir Keir’s insistence that he does not want to privatize the NHS, there is growing concern among left-wing MPs and campaigners over his call for greater use of the private sector and his claim that health services cannot be saved with a “big government chequebook”. .
One leading Labor MP on the left of the party said many wanted a commitment to a “very significant cash injection” for the NHS from Sir Keir before the next election – warning against any “further privatisation”.
The former frontbench leader told The Independent: “The Labor backbench needs to be clean. Are they going to make massive investments and pay the staff what they deserve or not?”
Some in the party are also angry about student tuition fees after Sir Keir again failed to rule out a reversal of a pledge to scrap fees brought in by the Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition.
Cole Mackail, a member of the executive of campaign group Momentum, said Sir Keir’s continued refusal to deliver on his promise to remove them was “deeply worrying” and said it would be “hypocritical” to renege on the promise.
Labour’s approach to social benefits has also come under scrutiny after shadow work and pensions minister Jonathan Ashworth rejected Keir Starmer’s pledge to scrap universal credit and said benefits sanctions would continue.
Momentum, the group set up after Jeremy Corbyn became leader, called on Labor to “end the penalty regime”, where people’s payments are stopped if they don’t follow the rules.
Sir Keir was mocked online for suggesting people could self-refer if they had internal bleeding
(BBC/AFP via Getty Images)
On Sunday, Mr Starmer said he wanted Labor to be “bold and bold” in reforming the NHS – but denied any suggestion he was moving to privatize the health service.
“Free at the point of use is the founding principle of the NHS and is absolutely fundamental to me,” he told the BBC’s Laura Kuensberg on Sunday. “It will always be free at the point of use – but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t use the private sector as well.”
Sir Keir said Labor would aim to remove “red tape” as it set out plans to phase in a new system for GPs, turning family doctors into direct NHS employees. “If we don’t get real about reform, the NHS will die,” he wrote in the Sunday Telegraph.
Mr Starmer also suggested the improvement would include people with back problems – or those suffering from internal bleeding – being able to self-direct. “If you have internal bleeding and you just need a test, there has to be a way that doesn’t involve going to the GP,” he told the BBC.
‘We’re looking at options’: Keir Starmer refuses to confirm whether Labor will scrap tuition fees
BMA chairman Philip Banfield condemned Labour’s self-referral policy and said he believed Labor and the party’s shadow health secretary Wes Streeting did not “understand” the work of GPs.
He told Sky News’ Sophie Ridge on Sunday: “I met with Wes Streeting this week and we had to agree to disagree that he doesn’t understand common practice. GPs are one of the most efficient and effective parts of the health service in the way they manage risk – they are superb at it.”
Lead NHS campaigner Dr Rachel Clarke said the proposal to allow patients to “self-refer” to specialists with problems without using GPs was “so monumentally stupid and offensive on so many levels that it could hardly Do I know where to start?’
“These attacks on general practice and the dismissal of the GP role as a bureaucratic waste of time betray a spectacular ignorance of how healthcare works,” Dr Clarke tweeted. “Qualified sorting [by GPs] is vital.”
The Socialist Health Association said Labor was offering “bromides and dangerous fake solutions” when the NHS needs more money. “An emphasis on private sector involvement in the NHS will do nothing but accelerate a two-tier health system – one for the rich and one for the rest of us,” a spokesman said.
Labour’s shadow mental health minister Rosena Allyn-Khan, an emergency doctor, refused to back shadow health secretary Mr Streeting’s recent comments about the need to “reform or die” the NHS.
But shadow culture secretary Lucy Powell dismissed the idea of a rift over NHS reform and the use of the private sector. She told The Independent that the shadow cabinet agreed with the need to “make sure we can use all the capacity we can get our hands on” to reduce record waiting lists.
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