NHS must be weaned off ‘more, more, more’ culture, warns Alan Milburn

Former health secretary Alan Milburn has said the NHS must be “weaned off the ‘more, more, more’ culture” after he was given a job on board of the Department of Health and Social Care.

Mr Milburn, who ran the department under Tony Blair, warned that the service was “drinking in the last-chance saloon” as he was appointed to the senior departmental position by Health Secretary Wes Streeting.

Mr Milburn said the NHS will need “big reforms” to make it “fit for the future” when the department announced he had been appointed as lead non-executive member of the board on Saturday.

Meanwhile, in an interview with The Times, the former Darlington MP said the crisis in the health service is “a million times worse” than when he was in government, adding: “I genuinely think it’s drinking in the last-chance saloon.”

He predicted that Mr Streeting would go “further and faster” than New Labour and added: “The NHS has got to be weaned off the ‘more, more, more’ culture, and it’s got to recognise that if you’re going to do big dollops of resources, then that has got to be matched by a massive dose of reform.”

He said there is a “different fiscal climate” now compared with when he was health secretary, adding: “If you’ve broadly got less resourcing than then, you’ve got to do more reforming than then.”

Mr Milburn was an MP between 1992 and 2010, and served as health secretary under Sir Tony between 1999 and 2003. He was behind the introduction of NHS foundation trusts in 2002.

Announcing his appointment on Saturday, the DHSC confirmed that “due to the requirements of the role” Mr Milburn was “appointed directly by the Secretary of State”.

Mr Streeting said Mr Milburn “made the reforms which helped deliver the shortest waiting times and highest patient satisfaction in the history of the NHS”.

He added: “His unique expertise and experience will be invaluable, and he has an outstanding track record of delivering better care for patients.”

In the notice from the DHSC, Mr Milburn said: “Having spent three decades working in health policy, I have never seen the NHS in a worse state. Big reforms will be needed to make it fit for the future.

“I am confident this Government has the right plans in place to transform the health service and the health of the nation.”

Mr Streeting has previously described the NHS as “broken” and has pledged to reform the service. He said his predecessor will offer advice on “turning the NHS around”.

Building “an NHS fit for the future” was one of Labour’s five missions laid out in the election manifesto.

The party promised to cut waiting times by offering more appointments, as well as more cancer scanners and a new plan for dentistry.

Press Association – Caitlin Doherty