Wes Streeting MP: speeches 2025

Speeches

• 15 Dec 2025 · NHS: Winter Preparedness · Hansard source

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  We do flex beds depending on needs. For example, there were just over 101,000 beds open on average per day in the past week, which was up on the previous week and broadly the same as it was this time last year. We are investing in the NHS, and we have to ensure that people get the right care, in the right place at the right time. That means not just investing in secondary care; if anything, it means investing in the front and back doors of the hospital—primary care, community services and social care—to deal with the flow of patients through hospitals. I do not pretend that these are easy issues or that everything is going swimmingly in the NHS—quite the opposite. I have seen conditions on our screens in the past week or two that I would not want to be treated in, someone I love to be treated in, or anyone to be treated in. It is a reflection of that fact that we inherited an NHS that was in enormous crisis. It will take time to recover. The key for me is achieving year-on-year improvements to get the NHS back on its feet and to ensure it is fit for the future.

• 15 Dec 2025 · NHS: Winter Preparedness · Hansard source

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  No member of staff should be bullied for going to work this week and doing the right thing by patients. I am grateful to resident doctors who have been at work during previous strike actions, and I hope that we will see resident doctors do the same this week. I ask resident doctors, regardless of their views on the offer that this Government have made, to think really carefully about the risks that the BMA is playing with, and I use that term advisedly, by choosing to schedule strikes this week. The most reasonable thing would have been for the BMA to accept the offer of an extension to its strike mandate, and to have simply postponed its strikes to January. It would have reflected well on the BMA. It would have shown that the BMA cared and had consideration for its colleagues who are under pressure this week. It would have shown that it cared and had consideration for patients who risk suffering this week because of its action. It is for the BMA to say why it rejected that perfectly reasonable offer, and why it has chosen the most dangerous time to be out on strike. I think this is probably the most shameful episode in the BMA’s history since it marched against the foundation of the NHS.

• 15 Dec 2025 · NHS: Winter Preparedness · Hansard source

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• 15 Dec 2025 · NHS: Winter Preparedness · Hansard source

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  The NHS’s national medical director says: “This unprecedented wave of super flu is leaving the NHS facing a worst-case scenario”. This is backed up by the data. On any given day last week, an average of 2,500 patients were in hospital beds—a 55% increase on the week before, and almost double the number from 2023. One hundred and six flu patients are in intensive care, compared with 69 the previous week. There are 1,300 more staff off than in the week before, and the number of calls received by NHS 111 last week was 446,000—8% higher than at this time last year. It is clear from both the NHS and UK Health Security Agency data that there is a real risk for the NHS and for patients, and it is at this moment of maximum danger that the British Medical Association has chosen to go ahead with Christmas strikes, when they will inflict the greatest level of damage on the NHS. The BMA said this dispute was about pay, but we gave doctors a 28.9% pay rise. Then it said it was also about jobs, so I offered a deal to halve the competition for jobs to less than two applicants per post. It is now clear what these strikes are really about—the BMA’s fantasy demand for another 26% pay rise on top of the 28.9% doctors have already received. I also offered to extend the BMA strike mandate, so it could postpone this action and go ahead once flu has subsided. The fact that it also rejected that offer shows a shocking disregard for patient safety. Since this strike represents a different magnitude of risk from previous industrial action, I am appealing to ordinary resident doctors to ignore the BMA strike and go to work this week. Abandoning patients in their hour of greatest need goes against everything that a career in medicine is meant to be about. The entire focus of my Department and the NHS team is now on getting the health service through the double whammy of flu and strikes. We have already vaccinated 17 million people, which is 170,000 more than last year, and 60,000 more NHS staff. We have invested in 500 new ambulances, 40 new same-day emergency care and urgent treatment centres, and 15 mental health crisis assessment centres. The NHS will also be recalling resident doctors to work in emergency situations, and we will not tolerate the dangerous attempts to block such requests that we have seen from the BMA in the past. I am proud of the way that the NHS team has pulled together through strike action in the past, and I know they will move heaven and earth to keep patients as safe as they can this winter. I am just appalled that they are having to do so without the support of their colleagues in the BMA.

• 15 Dec 2025 · NHS: Winter Preparedness · Hansard source

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  I echo my hon. Friend’s thanks to frontline NHS staff for what they are doing against a very challenging backdrop, which will be made all the more difficult this coming week. I also thank her personally for her ongoing frontline service, which she performs in addition to her duties in this House. I am always delighted to meet her and I would be very happy to discuss her report with her.

• 15 Dec 2025 · NHS: Winter Preparedness · Hansard source

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  It is one thing for the BMA to have rejected the offer we made; it is quite something else to have done that following a 28.9% pay rise—but we are where we are. The thing that I find utterly inexplicable and indefensible about the BMA’s position is that we offered it the chance to extend its strike mandate to the beginning of February, in order that strikes could be delayed into January, to give the NHS a clear run at an extremely difficult and challenging winter and the most challenging time of the year for the NHS. The only reason the BMA is choosing this week to strike is that it knows it will inflict maximum damage on the NHS, but in doing so it risks avoidable harm to patients. That is unconscionable, indefensible and unnecessary, and I ask ordinary members of the BMA, whatever their views on the offer or this Government, to bear that in mind when deciding whether or not to leave their patients this week.

• 15 Dec 2025 · NHS: Winter Preparedness · Hansard source

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  Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I just wanted to welcome the hon. Gentleman’s endorsement of vaccination. It is by far the most sensible thing he has ever said—that is a low bar, but he has cleared it, and I am very grateful to him. He might want to have a closer look at who his party platforms at its conferences, but that is not a matter for this urgent question.

• 15 Dec 2025 · NHS: Winter Preparedness · Hansard source

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  I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me the opportunity to say, for the avoidance of doubt, that accident and emergency is for accidents and emergency situations. It is not an “anything and everything” walk-in service, and A&E departments are already stretched ahead of strikes. For patients who are in need of medical care or attention but are struggling to access their GP or wondering which NHS service local to them would be most suitable, NHS 111 provides a suitable service to triage and point them in the right direction. Of course if someone requires an ambulance, they should dial 999 in emergencies, and if it is an accident or emergency, people should attend emergency departments in the usual way.

• 15 Dec 2025 · NHS: Winter Preparedness · Hansard source

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  That is very good advice on vaccination. If people require health services and it not an accident or an emergency, they should call 111, visit the website or use the NHS app. There are plenty of services available to help people, but as people will have seen on their television screens and social media feeds, the current pressures mean that the emergency department is not a place to be, unless they have had an accident or it is a genuine emergency.

• 15 Dec 2025 · NHS: Winter Preparedness · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Responsible trade unions think about the wider workforce and the impact on service users, whether they are children or other users of public services. Crucially, for most trade unions in this country strike action is a last resort. It is astonishing that the BMA chose to go on strike after a 28.9% pay rise, well ahead of the Government making any decisions on future years’ pay and with the Government willing to discuss future years’ pay with the BMA. It is extraordinary that the BMA has chosen to go on strike after we proposed to take action on jobs, including by bringing forward legislation at an expedited pace. By the way, that involved ensuring that the legal advice was watertight and that, operationally, we could deliver a new application round. It involved working trust by trust to secure the extra training places, and working with my counterparts in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Even after all that effort was strained to bring forward something quickly for this application round, the BMA rejected it. It is unreasonable, and to have rejected the offer of postponing strikes until the new year on the grounds of patient safety and doing the decent thing by their colleagues was unconscionable.

• 15 Dec 2025 · NHS: Winter Preparedness · Hansard source

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  First, I thank the staff of Derriford hospital. I have visited it a number of times over the years, and have seen them coping with pressures at the height of summer, during peak tourist season, and in the depths of winter; I was there this time last year. They do a really good job in very difficult circumstances, and my hon. Friend champions them regularly and consistently, publicly and privately. My hon. Friend is absolutely right about the challenges that we face in our urgent and emergency departments. Our urgent and emergency care plan addresses the underlying issues that he raises, but of course, we have more to do in the coming weeks to help manage the NHS through this winter, and we are already reflecting on how we will plan for next winter, too.

• 15 Dec 2025 · NHS: Winter Preparedness · Hansard source

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  We will review eligibility, distribution and means of accessing the vaccine in the usual way. People should enjoy themselves over the Christmas period. It is a time for family and seeing loved ones and friends, but people should be mindful of the risks posed by this most virulent strain of flu. If people are symptomatic and likely to give someone they love something they would rather not have this Christmas, they may want to hold off for a week until they have recovered.

• 15 Dec 2025 · NHS: Winter Preparedness · Hansard source

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  I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. Given that politicians are somewhere below traffic wardens and estate agents in terms of public popularity at the moment, it is quite an achievement for the BMA to have found itself even less popular with the public, but I think it has made very clear through its actions and rhetoric this week that it does not care about public opinion. In fact, the BMA does not seem to care much about the public at all. The hon. Gentleman is quite right that we need to make sure we have a good supply of vaccine available across the whole of the United Kingdom. We work closely with the devolved Administrations, and I speak regularly with my Northern Ireland counterpart. Should the Northern Ireland Executive ever need support or assistance, we are always willing to provide it wherever we can.

• 15 Dec 2025 · NHS: Winter Preparedness · Hansard source

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  We are doing much of what the Liberal Democrat spokesperson asks; the hon. Lady is absolutely right that we need to focus on delayed discharge and demand management, and the system is doing all of those things. It is challenging in the NHS. The House will know of our determination to end corridor care. We have certainly ended the nomenclature of “temporary escalation spaces”, which makes corridor care sound like it is both normal and acceptable in the NHS, neither of which is true. I will stop short of asking the Prime Minister to chair Cobra meetings. That would not be the right mechanism or response, but of course he and I meet regularly to discuss winter pressures, and I will keep him apprised of the situation.

• 15 Dec 2025 · NHS: Winter Preparedness · Hansard source

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  Through my hon. Friend I thank staff at Milton Keynes hospital for all their hard work—I have had the privilege of visiting recently—and I thank all NHS staff for what they are doing throughout this week and throughout a very challenging winter. We know that staff are working under pressure and that their pay, terms and conditions need to improve. Most importantly, we know that conditions for patients need to improve, and we are far better able to do that if we work together, and if the BMA is more reasonable not just about the scale of the asks, but about the pace with which it is demanding change, recognising our responsibility to all staff, not just doctors, and crucially to patients.

• 15 Dec 2025 · NHS: Winter Preparedness · Hansard source

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  That is part of GPs’ contractual obligations. Accurate reporting is absolutely central, both from an ethics and integrity perspective, and because it helps to inform us about the state of the service, and how we can improve care for patients. I am happy to look at the situation in my hon. Friend’s constituency with the integrated care board, to ensure that data and information are being collected and provided accurately for him and for public consumption.

• 15 Dec 2025 · NHS: Winter Preparedness · Hansard source

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  This is the futility of the BMA’s position. The steps that we were proposing to take—both increasing the number of specialty places and bringing forward emergency legislation to deal with UK prioritisation—would have reduced the competition ratio from around 4:1 today to less than 2:1. That would have kicked in during the current round. We would have been able to bring forward emergency legislation and a new application round in the spring. The BMA has rejected that approach, and we will not proceed on that basis. It is for the BMA to explain what its dispute is all about. We were told that it was all about jobs. What it seems to be about in substance is that the BMA wants a 26% pay rise, in addition to a 28.9% pay rise. I think the BMA is missing a degree of perspective about not just the state of the public finances but the pressures on other parts of the NHS and the public sector. The Government are committed to improving, consistently and year on year, the pay, terms and conditions of staff, and, crucially, the conditions in which patients are seen and treated. We cannot fix it all at once. In fact, when this and previous Governments have floated the idea of raising extra money, BMA committees have sometimes been among the first to complain about the prospect of higher taxes, including on pensions, and other issues. It seems that their view is that everybody else should pay higher taxes for their higher salaries, and no one else matters. For me, those Agenda for Change staff who have been left behind are the first priority.

• 15 Dec 2025 · NHS: Winter Preparedness · Hansard source

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  Two things: first, we will certainly give serious consideration to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow (Ms Creasy)—the JCVI will do that in the usual way, and we follow its advice —and secondly, resident doctors have been to work in previous rounds of strikes, and I have not been made aware of bullying or intimidation of them. Of course, that should not be happening, and if it does, my priority will be protecting doctors who are doing the right thing. My expectation is that no one will be intimidated for making the moral and ethical judgment that going to work is the right thing to do by patients, by their colleagues and by the NHS this Christmas.

• 15 Dec 2025 · NHS: Winter Preparedness · Hansard source

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  I thank my hon. Friend for his support and questions. We will indeed reflect on our performance after this winter, just as we did after last winter. He raised interesting points about the way in which we deliver vaccines. As for the questions about eligibility and timing, we rely on the expert advice of the JCVI, which will also look at the data on how this winter has panned out. We look forward to receiving its recommendations in due course.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Resident Doctors: Industrial Action · Hansard source

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  I congratulate my hon. Friend on all his campaigning to secure investment in his constituency. One thing I can assure everyone in our country is that NHS leaders, frontline staff and I will do everything we can to mitigate harm during these strikes; I am afraid what I cannot do is guarantee that there will be no harm. That is the thing that keeps me awake at night at the moment, and that is the thing that the BMA should keep foremost in their minds when deciding whether or not, even at this late stage, to take up the offer to postpone strikes until January and take the mandate extension.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Resident Doctors: Industrial Action · Hansard source

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  That is the only thing I have been thinking about in recent days, and it is why I have offered to extend a strike mandate for the first time, even though the BMA has asked me to do that on previous occasions in different contexts. I think it is a sensible compromise, and it avoids that dreaded phone call to the NHS staff member who has to cancel their holiday plans for Christmas and go back to work. Most importantly of all, it avoids that dreaded phone call to the patient who has been gearing themselves up for that test or scan that they are worried about, or that operation or procedure that they have waited far too long for. Indeed, it avoids the dreaded situation of someone having to call 999 in an emergency uncertain about whether the ambulance is going to arrive on time and anxious about whether they will be waiting in a car park, in a queue, in the back of an ambulance or, indeed, on a trolley in a corridor. It gives me no pleasure at all to acknowledge that the bleak situations I have described are in play today in the NHS. Activity is already being stood down, but even if this strike action were not looming, the NHS is not in a state that I would want myself, the people I love, the people I represent or anyone in our country to be treated in, because of the enormous pressures that it is under. With that in mind, and after listening to the contributions we have heard from across the House from Members on both sides who are not anti-doctor or even anti-BMA, I urge the BMA to do the right thing—not just to adopt this deal, but even at this late stage to adopt the offer of mandate extension in order to put off till January the spectre of strike action, and to give their members time to think, vote and make a decision on whether to accept a deal that would make a meaningful material difference to their job prospects, to their careers and to the future of our national health service. It is not too late to change course. It is not too late for the BMA to change its mind, and there is never any shame in doing so for those who think that is right. I thank all hon. Members for their contributions, and you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for giving us so much time on such an important issue.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Resident Doctors: Industrial Action · Hansard source

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  I should also declare that I am a member of the GMB and Unison. I say to my hon. Friend that there is a striking inconsistency between what the BMA is demanding for its members and what it proposes to pay its own staff. There is a word for that. In the spirit of trying to engage more constructively, I will not use it. However, I urge the BMA to engage constructively with us and with its own staff. It certainly will not want to see me on the picket lines outside BMA House.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Resident Doctors: Industrial Action · Hansard source

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  My hon. Friend makes a really good point. Sometimes during ballots people who are opposed to industrial action choose not to cast a ballot at all because they know that the turnout threshold is material. In the coming days, it is absolutely vital that every resident doctor makes their voice heard. This is their chance to tell me and their reps how they want to proceed on this deal. I respect the fact that the resident doctors committee has chosen today to present the deal in neutral terms to its members so that they can make a choice. I really do respect that. Now I urge resident doctors to make their views known and take the opportunity in front of them so that we can move forward together to make real changes to their lives.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Resident Doctors: Industrial Action · Hansard source

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  I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. This is the point that I have impressed on the chair of the resident doctors committee. This deal is not the end of the conversation about jobs and career development in the NHS, because there are plenty of problems for us to solve. Although we cannot afford to go further on pay this year, what we have done so far—28.9%—is not the extent of what the Government can and are willing to do on pay. It just requires a bit of give and take, and I think we will make much more constructive and meaningful progress if we work together. I have my part to play in that, and from my point of view, we need to reset the relationship. It has hit the buffers somewhat in recent weeks. I am willing to do that. We have people we can work with on the resident doctors committee, but I think we are going to have to grasp the olive branch as it is presented today so that we can make more progress in the new year.

• 10 Dec 2025 · Resident Doctors: Industrial Action · Hansard source

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  I thank the Chair of the Select Committee for that contribution, which is really important on two fronts. First, she is absolutely right that this really is not the time for this kind of disruption, and I think the BMA knows that. I do not think that those I am dealing with are bad people. I think they are frustrated with me and this Government—they do not think we have gone far enough—and I am equally frustrated with them, and the fact that they do not recognise how far we have come, and how fast, but that is the nature of the dispute. With the extended mandate, there is an opportunity for us all to park this and, in the worst-case scenario, revisit it in January. I hope, even now, that the BMA will seize that opportunity. I think it would do it the world of good in the eyes of the public, and in the eyes of its members and the wider NHS family. I am really glad that the Chair of the Select Committee raised the point about international medical graduates and the overseas workforce. The NHS has always been an international employer. We have been so fortunate as a country that, since 1948, people have come from around the world to help us build and sustain a national health service. Without them, it would collapse, and we never want to be a country that closes the door to international talent. What is extraordinary is that many of those overseas doctors, when they see the competition ratios and compare our approach to that of their home country and other countries, think we have lost the plot. They cannot believe we do not already do this, so I think they will understand what we are doing and why. I hope they will be reassured that international recruits who have given service to the NHS will also be able to apply for specialty places, because we want to recruit and retain great talent, but they will also recognise how this is a game changer for the ratios for homegrown talent. I think they will understand that. I think they will respect that. Not least, I have been at pains as Health Secretary, given some of the ugly rhetoric that has come from one corner of this Chamber, to emphasise that, while some people in this House might tell those international recruits to go home, as far as we are concerned they are home.