Don't Go Private – NHS Can Manage Post-Pandemic Stresses, Says Javid

Sajid Javid has urged patients stuck on long waiting lists not to go private, insisting “the NHS can manage it,” as he pledged to use his position as the first minority ethnic health secretary to tackle racial disparities in health.

- Heather Stewart Rowena Mason

Speaking to the Guardian as he marks 100 days in the post, the health secretary declined to say when the NHS would be able to clear the post-pandemic backlog. But asked if he would encourage patients to resort to using private healthcare to expedite their treatment, Javid said: “No”.

“That’s always a choice for people that can afford it, and that’s up to them. But it’s not certainly something I would be recommending to anyone,” he said. “I don’t want a situation where too many more people just stop [using the health service] … because I want them to use the NHS. The NHS can manage it.”

The shadow health secretary, Jon Ashworth, warned last week that long waiting lists were in danger of leading to the privatization of the NHS as patients desert it. The Institute for Public Policy Research, a think tank, recently suggested that eliminating the backlog in cancer care alone could take more than a decade.

The government recently announced a one percentage point increase in national insurance contributions, with most of the revenue initially going to the NHS, then switching to social care in later years.

As well as dealing with the legacy of the crisis, Javid said he wanted to tackle the inequalities that mean healthy life expectancy is 20 years higher in Richmond-upon-Thames than Blackpool, where he gave a recent speech.