Wes Streeting says the Conservative NHS plan will not solve the shortage of doctors and nurses.Wes Streeting

Wes Streeting has criticized the Conservative Party’s future NHS plans for having “gaping holes”, leading to backlogs and employee dissatisfaction among doctors, nurses and care workers. He said he could do little to address the shortage.

The shadow health secretary said doctors and nurses, who are considering industrial action in the coming months, were unable to provide the best care to their patients not only because of their salaries but because of staffing and the weight of their patients. He said he was concerned about the “moral harm” he had suffered. demand.

“They don’t feel the cavalry is coming,” Streetting said in an interview with The Guardian.

“What NHS staff want is a reliable workforce plan. They know it won’t be delivered overnight. Hmm.

“And we are deeply concerned to have a third new secretary of state in six months. He seems to be dodging the biggest challenge facing the nation. health Service, and without her offering a reliable workforce plan, it would be difficult to take her seriously. ”

Therese Coffey will submit a new plan to the NHS on Tuesday. The Department of Health and Human Services said it would focus on new ways to tackle what she called her ABCD of the problem. Backorders; Care; and Doctors.

The focus is on delays in hospital discharge and long wait times for GP appointments.

In advance of the statement, Streeting urged the health secretary to immediately amend doctors’ pensions to allow health workers to stay longer in the service and direct additional social care funding to care worker retention.

He also said the government should announce the return of a “jab army” of volunteer vaccines to ease the pressure on GP surgeries to provide flu, monkeypox, and Covid booster jabs.

NHS figures show a shortage of 10,500 doctors and 47,000 nurses, according to Streeting, but no actual workforce plan was produced until an independent assessment of the shortage was made. .

Earlier this year, the government blocked an amendment to the Health Care Bill engineered by former Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt. In this amendment, the next 5, 10, 10 and 20 years.

Streeting said this summer had already seen the NHS face a crisis worse than its worst winter yet. Ambulance call response times, A&E wait times, and the number of patients waiting her over a year for surgery have all hit record highs.

“Unless they solve the fundamental problem – the huge NHS staffing shortage – there is no hope of saving the NHS and building a future-proof NHS,” he said.

Streeting said he suggested the government would likely loosen visa restrictions further to allow more foreign staff to work in the NHS, adding that it was an “inevitable short-term fix”. ‘, but he said the move is hiring staff from countries where ‘we’ are in dire need of staff. ”

He called on Coffey to fund more places for medical students after 3,000 were cut this year.

“We’re rejecting a huge number of straight-A students from college medical courses because there are no places available,” he said. It is

“Still, people see these places as more attractive employers than social care, and with 400,000 hospital discharges being delayed each month, all this creates a perfect storm.”

Industrial action ballots will be sent to 300,000 nursing staff across the UK this month, and the BMA also plans to vote for junior doctors.

Streeting, whose party has taken a neutral approach to strikes and has banned shadow ministers from participating in picket lines, said he could understand the situation was unacceptable to NHS staff.

“They come home at the end of the day, not just exhausted and burned out, but traumatized because they have this great anxiety,” says Ilford North. said the MP. “They are not providing the quality care their patients deserve.”