Movers and Shakers: Wes Streeting

Labour promises Parky Charter action - but Paxman is sceptical

If the polls are correct he is very likely to be the most important figure in health and until he sat down at the back of the Ladbroke Arms last Monday I was sure that Wes Streeting would pull out of his date with Movers and Shakers.

After we took our Parky Charter to Downing Street we had a series of meetings with leading politicians, from the All Party Parliamentary Group on Parkinson’s to the Secretary of State for Health Victoria Atkins. But try as we might we couldn’t fix a rendezvous with the Shadow Health Secretary. Then old Westminster hand Mark Mardell worked his contacts and Wes Streeting was suddenly available for something better than a meeting - an appearance on the podcast, not via video call but in person.

Wes Streeting prepares for interrogation, Jeremy limbers up with a pint..

That however was before the surprise General Election was called - what were the odds on that? - and we immediately assumed that three weeks into the campaign Wes would be up country dropping into target constituencies by helicopter or appearing on daytime TV talking about his favourite biscuit rather than speaking to us.

But no, there he was, bang on time, squeezing into the narrow space at the back of the pub where we record the podcast. What’s more he was bearing a gift in the form of a promise of action on the number one demand in the Parky Charter - speedy specialists. We have been appalled by what we have heard frim listeners about how long they are waiting to see a neurologist, either for an initial diagnosis or for follow-up appointments.

But Wes Streeting said a Labour government would fund 62,000 extra neurology appointments every year, meaning the backlog of nearly 125,000 people waiting more than the NHS target of 18 weeks for an appointment with a neurologist could be cleared within 5 years.

While we were excited by this news, we needed to drill down into the numbers but first we wanted to explore Wes’s extraordinary back story. Brought up in London, he describes the two very different working class East End families of his mum and dad. His father’s family were staunch Conservatives - “self reliant, pull yourself up by the bootstraps” - though he said his dad had just voted Labour for the first time with a postal vote. His mother’s family on the other hand had faced poverty and hardship and his grandfather had served a number of prison sentences for armed robbery while his grandmother had been in prison “having been caught up in the family business,” when his mother was born.

H.e says that background, coupled with a bout with kidney cancer from which he has fully recovered, has informed his centre left politics: “Having overcome that poverty and hardship, to become the first person in my family to go to university - I read history at Selwyn College Cambridge - my driving mission is to make sure that kids from working class backgrounds like mine have the same opportunities as those from more wealthier or privileged backgrounds.”

But most of our conversation centres on Parkinson’s and the wider challenges facing the NHS. Thousands of extra neurology appointments are all very well but where is he going to find the neurologists? We point at a survey showing the UK comes 44th out of 45 European countries in numbers of neurologists per head. He talks of “bad workforce planning” by the Conservatives and says a Labour government would make more medical school places available to boost the number of doctors.

Mark has some back of the envelope calculations from Parkinson’s UK showing that to train enough neurologists to get us up to the European average would cost nearly £1 billion a year - and that’s before you start paying them. Wes Streeting, who had earlier been ultra cautious about our relatively modest demands for more funds for Parkinson’s research, said cutting corners on training new medical staff was a false economy:

“We are seeing enormous cost to our economy, to our society and our NHS as a result of the NHS not being there for people when they need it, if you do late diagnosis, that means more expensive and less effective treatment. “

Our conversation ranges from the need for more Parkinson’s nurses - again he blames poor workforce planning - to the ignorance and obstructiveness Parkies face when claiming benefits - he admits there needs to be a change in attitudes.

We discuss how difficult it is for innovation to flourish in the NHS and he shows he is not afraid to ruffle feathers on the left on the issue of private sector involvement: “The NHS loves health charities, it loves universities, but it's really sniffy about private sector innovation.”

For the most part Wes Streeting seems comfortable and well-briefed in responding to our probing. Except that is in the face of interventions from the man who, in the middle of toying with a Scotch Egg, barks out a simple question in the middle of the Labour MP’s musings on the health service:

“What are you going to do about it?” demands Jeremy Paxman. For Wes Streeting this stirs a scary memory:

“Back a long time ago, when I was president of NUS, I had the terrifying experience of appearing on Newsnight… I didn't think it was going to happen to me again. I thought I'd escaped when you'd left Newsnight, but here I am being subjected to for. Paxo treatment.”

Overall, we were impressed with the man who is most likely to decide the fate of the Parky Charter and gratified that he took the time to speak to us. But make no mistake, we will be watching closely to see that his words are translated into action and if we see any signs of backsliding we have the ultimate weapon - unleash the Paxo!