Streeting Resigns After 22 Months, Defends NHS Record

Wes Streeting ended his 22-month tenure as the UK’s health secretary on Thursday, June 27, 2024, submitting a resignation letter to Keir Starmer that set out what he described as improvements in the National Health Service. In the letter, Streeting pointed to falling waiting lists for planned hospital treatment and better emergency-care performance.

Critics, including NHS experts and Members of Parliament, said his account focused on the strongest metrics while leaving major unresolved pressures largely unaddressed.

Streeting said the waiting list for planned hospital treatment was down by 517,000 compared with the previous government’s figures. He also said ambulance response times for strokes and heart attacks were the fastest in five years and that A&E performance was improving, with four-hour waiting figures at their best in five years.

Some analysts argued that the resignation letter read like a “greatest hits” summary and did not engage with areas where the health service is still missing key targets. They also said that a stream of policy reviews and documents had not yet translated into measurable delivery on long-running problems.

Critics cite gaps on cancer, maternity, and mental health

NHS experts and MPs said the record presented by Streeting omitted other waiting times that remain well off-target, including for urgent cancer treatment. They also noted that he commissioned multiple reviews into issues that have persisted for years, including maternity care and demand for mental health services.

Sarah Woolnough, chief executive of the King’s Fund think tank, said the Department of Health and Social Care produced a large volume of policy documents, frameworks and strategies during Streeting’s tenure. She questioned whether the same intensity was applied to implementing the government’s 10-year health plan.

NHS England overhaul raises questions about cost and focus

Streeting also moved ahead with changes that will abolish NHS England, despite earlier ruling out a reorganisation. The shift is expected to lead to staff redundancies and significant costs, and some insiders described it as a distraction from core operational pressures in the health service.

Separately, critics highlighted that a planned inquiry into social care is not expected to report until 2028, leaving major questions about how care services will be funded and organised unresolved in the near term.

Attention is now likely to shift to how the government executes its 10-year health plan and whether reforms, including the NHS England changes, produce improvements beyond the headline indicators Streeting cited.