Arthur Reynolds: It’s time for the Tories to show Labour’s handling of the NHS is a dead end Streeting

Arthur Reynolds is a former civil servant and government speechwriter.

Tomorrow, resident doctors begin their second major walkout in six months.

This comes under a Health Secretary who once goaded his opponents about staff being back “on the front line, not the picket line” under his leadership.

Weeks into office and desperate to signal a change from the Conservative years, Streeting rushed through a deal that delivered a bumper 28.9 per cent pay rise for resident doctors. The accompanying press release trumpeted “devastating strikes coming to an end”.

But his deal failed to grasp the nettle on reform or prevent future strike action. It is dishonest of Streeting to now claim otherwise, and withholding doctors training places in response is simply punishing patients. Doctors are doing exactly what they said they would.

At the time of the pay rise, Rob Laurenson, then chair of the BMA’s resident doctors committee, warned Streeting: “in the event the pay review body disappoints, he needs to be prepared for the consequences.”

This is the latest in a catalogue of examples – from the botched family farms tax to the Mandelson fiasco – of this government’s student union-esque ‘Labour good, Tory bad’ credo shattering on contact with reality.

In opposition, Streeting’s playbook served him well: make an announcement, issue a catchy quote, jump in front of the nearest camera. But in government, promises need to be kept, and his rhetoric is divorced from results.

Last March, he announced plans to abolish NHS England, pledging to “take on vested interests and change the status quo” without a thought for how to fold its vast bureaucracy into DHSC. The result? Senior leaders dragged away from improving services, staff morale at rock bottom, and nothing to show for it before May’s make-or-break local elections.

He boasted that Labour’s target of delivering two million more appointments in their first year of government was ‘obliterated’. In reality, their first eight months delivered 600,000 fewer new appointments than Rishi Sunak’s government in the previous year.

Worse still, there are growing signs waiting lists are being manipulated. In one in four cases, GPs are being forced to seek advice from consultants instead of making referrals, despite responses taking as long as eight months. At the same time, Streeting has paid hospitals £85 million to remove 2.4 million people from lists without receiving care. The man who promised ‘to save the NHS’ is more interested in saving his own reputation.

Another favourite Streeting soundbite is turning the ‘national health service into a neighbourhood health service’. Again, this is proving easier said than done. Clobbered by hikes in business rates and National Insurance contributions, 550 pharmacies closed their doors last year and a record number of patients are forced to resort to A&E with minor ailments like coughs or diarrhoea.

The public aren’t buying it either. They’ve become immune to the new Labour spin Streeting personifies. When he took office, 41 per cent of the public thought Labour was best placed to run the NHS. Today, just 19 per cent say the same, with 11 per cent favouring the Conservatives and 12 per cent Reform.

Initially, the Conservative Party were too squeamish to hold Streeting’s feet to the fire. The response to his ‘AI will fix everything’ 10-Year Plan was practically supplicant. But in recent weeks, Stuart Andrew has upped the ante – challenging Streeting at the dispatch box and proposing serious alternatives, including banning doctors’ strikes and restoring minimum service levels to protect patient safety.

On health, Reform are as much use as a homoeopath at a heart transplant. With policies veering from the absurd – eliminating NHS waiting lists in two years – to the widely unpopular insurance-based model. While the Liberal Democrats are acting like junior partners in a coalition that’s increasingly becoming Labour’s only hope of clinging to power.

That leaves it up to Conservatives to hold Streeting to account for his failures in government.

Do this, and they can earn the right to be heard again on health.