Labour’s primary care reforms cannot happen without an appropriately funded NHS

The shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, says primary care in England needs reform and investment to revitalise services.1 Before road testing bold ideas it makes sense to discuss them first with experts and save later embarrassment. The rowing back from Labour’s assertion that patients should be able to bypass their GP and self-refer to specialists is welcome.2 Recent proposals by Streeting suggest,3 however, he is unaware that opticians can already refer directly to hospital specialists,4 or that the walk-in chest x ray service in Manchester5 is not an NHS service as such, but the first stage of a pilot research study.The UK National Screening Committee recently recommended targeted screening for lung cancer6 and that this should be integrated with smoking cessation services. Local authority funding for the latter, together with tobacco control measures, has, unfortunately, been cut by 46%.7A commitment by Labour to make the NHS work better for patients…
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