Favid's right about NHS reform, but wrong on policy

We know it is possible to make the National Health Service work, because Tony Blair did it. Some of his advisers were nervous when he said in 2002 that if the NHS was not “basically fixed” by the next election, “I am quite happy to suffer the consequences”, because they worried that it would be a hostage to fortune.

- JOHN RENTOUL

But the NHS was improving fast by the 2005 election, and it was in fact “basically fixed” by the end of the Labour government in 2010. Waiting lists had fallen to such a level that people were barely aware of them. Most targets were being met, allowing the NHS to focus on more difficult challenges, such as the early diagnosis and treatment of cancers. Patient satisfaction was at a record high.

So when Sajid Javid, who was health secretary for a year until a year ago, says that the NHS is “unsustainable” and needs “fundamental change”, the correct response is to point out that this is only true because we have had a Conservative government for 13 years that has systematically “un-fixed” it.

The Tories cannot blame the pandemic because everything was going wrong before the virus arrived, although it has made it harder to put right the underspending of the previous 10 years.

From the informed position of someone who had to try to mend the NHS, Javid is right. It does need fundamental change. He doesn’t say so directly, but he compares it with health services in France and Sweden, implying that we should adopt a social insurance system of the kind that is the norm in continental Europe.