Tories have left the NHS in 'critical condition' says peer

Starmer says patients right to be angry’ over damning report

- REBECCA THOMAS

A decade of Tory austerity has left the NHS in “critical condition” with some of the worst cancer survival rates in the Western world, according to a damning independent report. A rapid review of the health service, completed in nine weeks, has found that many of its staff are “disengaged” and that there are “distressingly high levels of sickness absence”.

Ara Darzi, a surgeon and an independent peer, blamed choices made by the last government for the damage to the health service, and said it would take more than five years to fix.

Sir Keir Starmer is expected to respond to the findings today by blaming the Tories while also making clear that the NHS must “reform or die”. He will say: “People have every right to be angry. It’s not just because the NHS is so personal to all of us – it’s because some of these failings are life and death.”

In his report, Lord Darzi described a “disastrous” 2012 shake-up by Conservative health secretary Andrew Lansley as “a calamity without international precedent”.

“In the last 15 years,” he continued, “the NHS was hit by three shocks – austerity and starvation of investment, confusion caused by top-down reorganisation, and then the pandemic, which came with resilience at an all-time low. Two out of three of those shocks were choices made in Westminster.”

Lord Darzi said Britain “cannot afford not to have the NHS, so it is imperative that we turn the situation around”, adding that the health service “is in critical condition, but its vital signs are strong”.

Other key findings from the report include the following: