Wes Streeting: 'It took the Tories 14 years to break the NHS - it can't be fixed in one Budget'

Wes Streeting has insisted the Government is raising taxes to get the “back on its feet”.

Writing in the today the Health Secretary has issued a strong rebuttal to criticism of the Government for increasing some taxes for businesses and the better off. Mr Streeting insists the - which increased NHS spending by £22.6 million to return its annual rise to the historic average of around 4% - is part of a “Gladiatorial effort” to save our NHS.

Wes Streeting, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, said:

Wednesday’s Budget marked an historic turning point for our country. The choice was stark. We could stick to the status quo of 14 years of underinvestment, which has kneecapped our economy and crippled our NHS. Or we could begin to fix the foundations, kickstart the economy, and rebuild our health service.

For the future of all Mirror readers and their families, we chose the latter.

When we took office in July, we received an appalling inheritance. A broken NHS. A £22 billion black hole in the public finances. And a series of unrealistic and unfunded promises. In my department alone, I discovered that the funding for the new programme runs out in March. Councils told me ’s care cap was impossible to implement.

The Conservatives had given up on trying to end the junior doctors strikes, with no money in the bank to cover next year’s pay rises. Worse still, I was told that the NHS had such large deficits, it would have to cut 20,000 appointments and operations a week.

For years, the Conservatives pretended the problems facing our country didn’t exist, leaving them to grow. This week, ran headfirst into them. She made difficult choices – on tax, spending and welfare. Her choices mean we can properly invest in the NHS.

We can deliver on our manifesto commitment to provide 40,000 extra appointments a week, and our investment in mental health services will treat an extra 380,000 patients.

With three million people off work, off sick, beating the Tory backlog is good for patients and the economy. By getting the NHS back on its feet, we will get Britain back to health and back to work.

The boost of over £3 billion in capital funding means we’re investing more in buildings, , and equipment than any time since Labour was last in office. Patients being treated in a hospital with a leaking roof, and NHS staff still forced to use creaking fax machines, will know too well how overdue this is.

New surgical hubs and AI-enabled scanners will deliver more than a million extra tests and procedures. We will arm NHS staff with modern technology. An extra £1 billion will repair crumbling buildings, and deliver upgrades to 200 GP surgeries across the country.

Money doesn’t come for free. Alongside the investment will come reform, so every penny we put in is well spent. This week we sent crack teams of top clinicians to hospitals around the country, to get surgeries running like formula one pit stops, treating far more patients every day.

I’ve already begun waging a war against NHS waste. This month, I will set out reforms to the way the NHS runs, so we get more out for what taxpayers put in.

We have launched the biggest national conversation on the NHS since its founding, where Mirror readers can share their experiences and ideas at Change.NHS.uk. These will shape our 10-Year Plan to fundamentally reshape the NHS, from hospital to community, analogue to digital, and from sickness to prevention.

It took the Tories 14 years to break the NHS. It can’t be fixed in a single Budget. Rome wasn’t built in a day - it took eight years to build the Colosseum.

It will require a gladiatorial effort to turn the NHS around. This Budget has given us the concrete building blocks to get there.