On last night’s BBC Question Time host Fiona Bruce was left visibly shocked when an audience member claimed his mum was put on a 60-week NHS waiting list
Wes Streeting responded to the NHS crisis (Image: Getty)
Fiona Bruce was left visibly shocked on the latest episode of BBC Question Time when an audience member explained his mum was on a 60-week waiting list for an operation.
Daniel in the audience asked: “Is corridor care and waiting 60 weeks for an operation considered a world class service by the NHS?” He added that his mum is waiting for an operation and described it as “a never ending cycle”.
On the BBC Question Time panel was Wes Streeting, who served as the UK Secretary of State for Health and Social Care from 5 July 2024 to 14 May 2026. Fiona turned to Mr Streeting and said: “That is utterly shocking, Wes, and obviously you were the health secretary. It’s your big mission to turn this around.”
Wes said: “The NHS is in a better place than it was two years ago but it took more than a decade to run down the national health service.” He added: “I’m not saying the NHS is great, I’m certainly not saying it’s world leading, and I’m not saying that we’ve solved all the problems. In fact the very point I’m making is the NHS is far from where we need it to be but it’s going to take time to turn it around because of the scale of the crisis.”
He added: “Bear with us, give us a chance, it is going to take time, we know how important it is, we’ve got the right plan, we are putting more money in but it is going to take time and i’m not going to pretend otherwise. And with respect, I don’t think people should expect given where we were a couple of years ago for the NHS to now be running world class in just over two years.”
The Conservatives’ shadow foreign secretary Tom Tugendhat added: “I think there were some things we got right but as Wes quite rightly says Covid was a hell of a blow to the system.”
Wes concluded: “If we would do this programme in 1999 two years into the last Labour government the conversation would have been really similar… it is difficult at the start but by the end of the Labour government we delivered the shortest waiting times and the highest patient satisfaction ever. We can get there, it takes time, there is a plan but you’ve just got to give us time and I just ask for a bit of the benefit of the doubt.”