Wes Streeting: The NHS is not the envy of the world
The News Agents
Global
4.1 • 5.4K Ratings
🗓️ 19 December 2023
⏱️ 37 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Wes Streeting is hoping to become the first Labour Health Secretary in 14 years. How honest is he prepared to be about what the health service needs and what Labour is prepared to spend?
On today's episode, he tells us that frankly the system we have is "not the envy of the world".
Can they really fix it by closing a non-dom tax loophole and praying for growth? We also hear what he really thinks of Israel's actions in Gaza and of the death threats he's received in his own constituency.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:09.3 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:12.8 | One of the things I've found most difficult this year is being honest about the scale of the crisis in the NHS, the fact it's not the envy of the world, it's a service not a shrine, and it needs to modernise or it will die. |
| 0:29.4 | Not the envy of the world, not a shrine, it's got to modernise or die. |
| 0:34.7 | This is the National Health Service. |
| 0:36.6 | And it sounds like it could be one of those right-wing |
| 0:39.6 | thing tanks saying this about why the NHS has to fundamentally change. But this is Wess-Streting. |
| 0:47.7 | The Shadow Health Secretary, and potentially next year, the Health Secretary. |
| 0:53.2 | Today, we're going to hear from Labour's Westreting |
| 0:56.1 | on what it's like to be put in charge of not a department so much as a religion. |
| 1:02.3 | We'll hear about his death threats. |
| 1:04.8 | We'll hear him truthfully tell us what Kirstama should be saying about Gaza |
| 1:10.5 | and what labour should be paying people |
| 1:13.7 | in the health and social care sector. Welcome to the newsagents. |
| 1:21.1 | The news agents. Well, I think we want to go in at the deep end with you a bit, because |
| 1:26.4 | if Labor win the next election, whenever that is, you will inherit not a department so much as a religion in a way, an ideology. |
| 1:39.4 | The esteem in which the NHS has held is so profound and so sort of tangible for this country. |
| 1:46.9 | I wonder if it makes it debilitating for discourse. |
| 1:51.0 | Does it make it hard to have an honest chat about what it's not getting right? |
| 1:56.3 | Well, Merry Christmas. It's really good to be. |
| 1:59.7 | One of the things I've found most difficult this year is |
| 2:03.3 | being honest about the scale of the crisis in the NHS, the fact it's not the envy of the world, |
... |
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