Photo: Collected
Prime Minister Keir Starmer will warn Thursday that Britain's state-run National Health Service must "reform or die" after an independent report said the venerated institution was in a "critical condition".
Starmer, whose Labour party was elected by a landslide in July, will promise "the biggest reimagining" of the NHS since it was founded 76 years ago in a speech in central London.
The address follows the publication of a 142-page investigation into the service which found that the health of Britons had deteriorated over the past 15 years.
The report's author, Ara Darzi, an unaffiliated Lord in parliament's upper chamber, said the NHS had fallen into "disrepair" because of a lack of investment, top-down reorganisation and the coronavirus pandemic.
"What we need is the courage to deliver long-term reform -- major surgery not sticking plaster solutions," Starmer was due to say, according to excerpts of his speech released to reporters.
"The NHS is at a fork in the road, and we have a choice about how it should meet these rising demands.
"Raise taxes on working people to meet the ever-higher costs of ageing population -- or reform to secure its future.
"We know working people can't afford to pay more, so it's reform or die," Starmer was expected to say.
Labour dumped the Conservatives out of power on July 4 in part on a pledge to "fix" the NHS, accusing the Tories of having "broken" it during their 14 years in power.
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