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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
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Polly Toynbee

Don’t panic when Starmer refers to NHS ‘reform’. He is thwarting Tory moves to destroy it

Keir Starmer on a visit to Stroud general hospital in Gloucestershire in August 2021.
Keir Starmer on a visit to Stroud general hospital in Gloucestershire in August 2021. Photograph: Sam Frost/The Guardian

“Call this a cure for NHS, Sir Keir?” splashes the Daily Mail, its opening paragraph claiming: “Doctors and experts last night rounded on Keir Starmer’s plans for NHS reform.” It’s no surprise the Mail wants to divert attention away from the cataclysmic collapse of the NHS, which Rishi Sunak still refuses to call a “crisis”.

The very word “reform” risks sending shudders through the NHS. How much more can it take after countless disruptive upheavals throughout its history, including two major ones since 2010? How many more here-today-gone-tomorrow politicians will seize the levers to shake up the working environment of the professionals keeping the NHS alive?

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