NHS operating theatres will be run like Formula 1 pit stops to get sick Britons back to work, Wes Streeting says

Operating theatres will be run like Formula 1 pit stops to get sick Britons back into work, Wes Streeting is set to claim.

Teams of leading clinicians are being sent to hospitals to roll out reforms aimed at seeing patients treated and returned to the workforce faster.

Top doctors who have developed new ways of working are delivering up to four times more operations than normal.

The Health Secretary will tell the Labour Party conference on Wednesday that the ‘crack’ teams are starting with 20 hospital trusts in the parts of the country with the biggest rates of economic inactivity.

Some 2.8million people are now out of work due to ill-health – 500,000 more than in 2019.

Teams of leading clinicians are being sent to hospitals to roll out reforms aimed at seeing patients treated and returned to the workforce faster. Some 2.8million people are now out of work due to ill-health

The Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts the bill for sickness and disability benefits will soar by £30billion in the next five years on current trajectories.

NHS waiting lists now stand at 7.6m, of whom 3.1m have been waiting longer than 18 weeks for treatment – the maximum patients are supposed to wait.

Mr Streeting will tell the conference in Liverpool: ‘Ending the junior doctor strikes was central to our commitment to deliver 40,000 more appointments a week to cut waiting lists. 

‘But as well as getting staff back to work, we need to get them working at the top of their game. 

‘We’re sending crack teams of top clinicians to hospitals across the country to roll out reforms – developed by surgeons – to treat more patients and cut waiting lists.

‘The first hospitals targeted by these teams will be in areas with the highest numbers of people off work sick. Because our reforms are focused not only on delivering our health mission but also moving the dial on our growth mission.

‘We will take the best of the NHS to the rest of the NHS, get sick Brits back to health and back to work. That’s the difference a Labour government makes.’