Ben Goldstone, Croydon and Sutton Socialist Party Branch
Reading Wes Streeting’s letter resigning from his post as health secretary, you would be forgiven for thinking the crisis within the NHS has been solved. That is until you actually have to get treatment or walk into an A&E!
Streeting bragged about beating waiting time targets – how, despite resident doctors’ strikes, waiting lists fell by 110,000 in March, and ambulance response times for heart attacks and strokes are the fastest in five years. Other figures were brought out to show how good a job he supposedly has been doing. He didn’t mention the millions of pounds more now going to private health companies who have benefited from Streeting’s reforms.
Starmer responded to this in his own letter, by thanking Streeting for his work and for all he has achieved as health secretary. Starmer patted himself on the back too, saying these improvements are down to the government’s choice to stabilise the economy, invest in public services, and reform the NHS.
The doctors’ union, the BMA, has found that waiting times for treatment remain far higher than before the Covid-19 pandemic. 7.11 million cases are on waiting lists. Of those cases, 2.47 million have been waiting for over 18 weeks and 94,000 have been waiting for over a year. Despite a slight improvement, only 92.8% of people received their first cancer treatment within one month from decision to treatment, below the 96% operational standard. The number of patients waiting over 12 hours for an emergency admission was about 108 times higher in April 2026 than April 2019.
A recent YouGov poll found that 59% of the public rated NHS services as ‘bad’. NHS workers have also been polled recently by YouGov, with 87% of them describing the NHS as being in a “weak state” and 66% of them feeling that Labour are badly handling the NHS. 53% believe that Wes Streeting was doing a bad job as health secretary. Increased demand, not enough funding, and shortage of staff were voted for as the top three causes of problems for the NHS.
The Royal College of Nursing, has said that the job is “far from done” and that “patients are still coming to harm in an NHS that has too few nursing staff to guarantee safe and effective care”.
We need to fight for a properly funded and staffed NHS able to support and meet the healthcare needs of all! And that means building an alternative to the big business-supporting Labour Party.
