Streeting’s time as health secretary: a missed opportunity

Wes Streeting’s time as health and social care secretary has been a missed opportunity. Instead of using Labour’s overwhelming majority to fix the fundamental problems of the NHS he embarked on the unnecessary abolition of NHS England while failing to put in place a credible plan for reform.Labour’s 2024 general election manifesto promised not just to improve NHS performance but ensure its long term success through three shifts: hospital to community, treatment and prevention, and analogue to digital.1 This was supposed to be part of a pan-government “health mission” to help people to live longer healthier lives, which was quietly ditched.It took 12 months to publish the 10 Year Health Plan for England.2 It was well received, but Streeting failed to set out how it would be delivered. By the time he resigned almost a year later he had still not published either the delivery plan or the workforce plan,…