Health Secretary Wes Streeting has launched a fresh attack on Reform, accusing Nigel Farage’s Party of challenging the ideological foundations of NHS by wanting to introduce a social insurance-based model to fund the health service.
Speaking at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR), Health Secretary Wes Streeting mounted a strong defence of the National Health Service, framing the upcoming elections as a fight for the very survival of the civilised principle of universal healthcare against other models that could see people denied treatment based on their ability to pay.
His speech, designed to appeal to traditional Labour voters, comes ahead of May elections, which will see 30 million vote in elections, the biggest electoral test of the Labour Party since the 2024 General Election.
Streeting challenged Nigel Farage and Reform UK to come clean on their vision for a Britain without a tax-funded NHS.
The Health Secretary’s address was deliberately rooted in in the historical role Labour played in creating the NHS in 1948, led by Attlee and Bevan. He painted a visceral, harrowing picture of life when wealth dictated health. He spoke of Doris Hoefling, who was forced to haggle with a hospital almoner over the fee for her child’s birth, only to be told after the child was stillborn that she could now “afford to pay more.” He recounted the story of a Salford cobbler who extracted rotting teeth with the same unsterilised pincers used for shoe nails. He warned that these stories were not merely anecdotes but what awaits people if the consensus on the NHS is allowed to fray.
And in a pointed swipe at the Conservative opposition, he said that consensus on NHS funding and principles of a health service free at the point of delivery had even been upheld by Margaret Thatcher, but was under direct threat from the Right.
He targeted the siren voices of former Health Secretary Sajid Javid and Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch for flirting with ending the principle of care free at the point of use.
However, his sharpest barbs were reserved for Nigel Farage. Streeting accused the Reform UK leader of hiding a “guilty little secret”: a desire to replace the NHS with an insurance-based system. Noting that Farage has previously stated he does not want healthcare funded through general taxation, Streeting demanded answers to the practicalities of such a shift. What would the premiums be? What happens to the uninsured?
Streeting’s argument was bolstered by the very IPPR report he was there to welcome. The report effectively challenges the assumption that private or social insurance models are more efficient. According to the data, insurance-based systems are often bogged down by bureaucracy; if the NHS were to match the social insurance average, it would have to divert £7 billion away from patient services just to fund administration.
Furthermore, Streeting argued that such systems are inherently unequal, creating a “baked-in two-tier” reality where the wealthy receive vaccines while the poor are left with basic chemotherapy.
Crucially, the Health Secretary sought to bridge the gap between this ideological defence and the current performance of the service. He acknowledged that the NHS has let patients down in the past but insisted it is finally turning the corner. He cited data showing waiting lists are at their lowest level in three years, and A&E four-hour wait times this past winter were the best in four years. Patient satisfaction with GP access has reportedly climbed from 60 per cent to 77 per cent under Labour’s watch. Streeting highlighted the recruitment of 2,000 more GPs and 8,000 mental health workers as evidence that the analogue service is being successfully modernised for a digital age.
Streeting expressed personal horror at the prospect of Reform UK making gains in the land that birthed Bevan. He framed the choice for voters as one between a modernised, productive NHS that remains publicly owned, or a con that leads back to the days of the treatment being based on the ability to pay. Concluding the NHS is on the road to recovery, but that recovery is fragile, and the “charlatans” of Reform are waiting for it to fail.
Streeting turns up the heat on Reform over NHS policy
