Workforce and winter under Labour: Wes Streeting on his plan for the NHS and ending the strikes

With a general election looming, Wes Streeting could find himself health secretary by next January. The Labour MP has been shadow health secretary since 2021 and has caused controversy with some of his remarks—including that he won’t let “middle class lefties” stop him from using private providers to tackle NHS waiting lists1 and that the NHS uses every winter as “an excuse to ask for more money.”2

Speaking to The BMJ at the Royal College of Physicians’ London office, Streeting stands by his comment on winter pressures. “I think what I find frustrating is the poor planning ahead of winter—the fact that we now see not just crises in winter but all year round. Too often I’ve found in the last two and a half years that the answer that system leaders in the NHS reach for is more money,” he says.

“There shouldn’t be an assumption that, every time the NHS runs into winter, system leaders can point to the pressures and just say, ‘We need more money right now,’” he continues, adding that the government and the NHS must work together to “plan ahead of winter.”

When his comments on the winter crisis were reported last December many doctors expressed disbelief, with some believing that the MP was “trashing” healthcare staff.3 Streeting says that this …