Tony Blair has said that the NHS is “not serving its purpose” and called for more private sector involvement.
Millions of people are languishing on NHS waiting lists after a wave of strikes by workers in recent months.
More than 600,000 cancelled hospital appointments have been blamed on strikes and further misery is expected as consultants walk out on Thursday.
Asked if the NHS is providing a good standard of service, Mr Blair replied: “No, at the moment. In some respects the staff do a great job in difficult circumstances
“And I think the general experience of people is if you’re in really acute difficulty, then then it still does provide very good care.
“But a lot of the waiting lists are terrible, COVID, of course, has made it a lot worse.
“The truth is, you’re not going to have a lot more money to spend, but you do have to think how do we do things completely differently.”
The former Prime Minister called for greater private sector involvement, adding: “The problem always with the public sector, and this is what I learned in government, is the tough thing is to get it to innovate.
“Because in the private sector, if you don’t innovate, you go out of business, but it doesn’t happen in the public sector.”
