WES STREETING was criticised today for using his Labour conference speech to declare the “broken” NHS was “letting people down.”

The Health Secretary claimed “protecting the reputation of the NHS above protecting patients” was “killing it with kindness.”

Mr Streeting announced the government would be sending “crack teams of top clinicians” to hospitals nationwide, rolling out reforms to treat more patients and cut waiting lists, with the first 20 in areas with the highest numbers of people off work sick. 

He vowed to reform the NHS by turning it into a “Neighbourhood Health Service” focusing on prevention and personalised care by partnering and sharing data with tech firms.

Keep Our NHS Public co-chair Dr John Puntis said Mr Streeting’s “lacklustre” speech failed to mention the significant” investment needed to deliver his plans for new technology, community care and prevention for an already underfunded NHS.

“While decrying a two tier health system, paradoxically, among the solutions offered was diverting NHS patients to the private sector,” Dr Puntis added.

“Missing from the speech were commitments to stop underfunding the NHS and investment to reverse the current failures (a lesson to be learned from the last Labour government), move away from wasteful private outsourcing and build back publicly provided services, reverse the fragmentation of the NHS to make it a national service once again, and establish a national service for care, support and independent living.”

We Own It founder Cat Hobbs said reinstating the NHS to a fully public service is the reform the public wants and the legacy Mr Streeting should be building for the Labour government.

She said: “Streeting himself is letting down the NHS by repeating this bleak, damaging messaging without the desperately needed solutions that he has the power to provide: proper funding and an end to privatisation.

“Doctors and nurses need encouragement, decent pay, up-to-date IT and equipment, new beds, new capacity.

“Every week £10 million is wasted on private profits in our NHS, that money could be saved by insourcing private contracts.”

Sir Julian Hartley, of NHS Providers, which represents health leaders, said it was important to recognise what the NHS was doing well with the efforts of staff who were working “flat out.”

“There’s a lot to be proud of despite ongoing concerns and difficulties,” he added.