NHS could save £10bn by cracking down on waste Labour claim
Billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money is being wasted or poorly spent by the NHS each year on recruitment agencies, management consultants and archaic pagers, Labour has claimed.
Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting believes the health service is throwing away around £10bn as a result of poor governance under the Conservatives.
According to Labour, £3.5bn was spent last year on recruitment agencies as a result of failures to train enough medical staff since 2010, while £626m was spent by the Department of Health and Social Care on management consultants in 2021/22.
The party also highlighted reports from last year that showed the NHS is still using 79,000 pagers – a technology that died out of use among the wider public in early 2000s.
The health service accounts for 10 per cent of the world’s bleepers, with only one company still in existence that makes them at a cost of £400 each, suggesting a bill of as much as £32m for the technology.
Labour also claimed £1.7bn was being wasted due to beds being blocked by people who are well enough to leave hospital but cannot because of a lack of community care. However, the party does not spell out how it would deal with chronic social care failures in the UK.
In a speech to the Institute for Government on Tuesday, Mr Streeting will set out his party’s plans to cut the exorbitant amount of waste in the day to day running of the system.
“I am focusing on waste because I want to give the public hope that the NHS can be saved. The money that is wasted today can be used to get the NHS back on its feet tomorrow,” he is expected to say.
“With a government that understands the value of public money, that is brave enough to reform the NHS, that knows prevention is better than cure, the crisis in the health service can be turned around,” he will add.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer is understood to have set 8 February as a “hard deadline” for party officials to finalise the party’s draft general election manifesto.
According to the Financial Times, the work is being carried out by Rav Athwal, Sir Keir’s manifesto director, and is being drawn up in an attempt to see off any Tory attacks that it is fiscally irresponsible.
Labour insiders have said they are preparing for a May election, despite Rishi Sunak telling broadcasters earlier this month that it would be likely to fall in the “second half of the year”.
Commenting, Health and Social Care Secretary, Victoria Atkins MP said: “We have been able to deliver record funding for the NHS alongside the NHS’ first ever Long-Term Workforce Plan meaning more doctors and nurses.
“By sticking to the plan that Rishi Sunak has set out we will strengthen the economy, that’s how you pay for a strong NHS.”
