Wes Streeting has always been prepared to say difficult things.
He has spoken about increasing the use of the private sector in the NHS and picked fights with “coasting” GPs.
It hasn’t endeared him to parts of the left or some in the health service.
But the thinking in Government is that radical – and sometimes unpalatable – changes are urgently needed.
It is telling that his first act as Health Secretary was to declare that it was now Government policy that “the NHS is broken”.
And in September he echoed Keir Starmer’s assessment that the NHS needs to “reform or die”.
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PA)
Now we’re starting to see that they are serious about doing difficult things.
Politicians have long been reluctant to do more than tinker with the NHS.
Why suffer the political headache and risk getting bogged down for years when voters could kick you out before you can deliver results?
But this kind of thinking has left the NHS in a state of permanent crisis, while at the same time devouring vast amounts of public money.
The decision to scrap NHS England is undoubtedly a power grab – one a long line of Health Secretaries wished they could make.
It also carries massive risk. Restructuring could be a time consuming distraction from things voters actually care about, as well as further demoralising the workforce.
But Mr Streeting is impatient with the pace of change as the clock is already ticking until the next election.
If the Government hasn’t made good on its promise to slash waiting lists by then, it will have a big problem.
So Labour is taking back control of the NHS and gambling that ministers can force through the changes needed so voters feel the health service is working for them.
But they know there will be no one else to blame if they fail.
Mr Streeting cares deeply about the NHS, which saved his life when he was diagnosed with kidney cancer in 2021.
It’s his responsibility to save it now.