Wes Streeting’s shock as he is compared to Elon Musk

Wes Streeting's shock as he is compared to Elon MuskSource: Sky News

Transcript

00:00It's so interesting, Health Secretary, hearing all of those points and that rhetoric from

00:05you because it sounds not dissimilar from the rhetoric we've seen in the last couple

00:12of weeks from the new head of the Department of Government Efficiency in the United States

00:17in Elon Musk. Do you think you and he share similar sentiments towards driving government

00:23efficiency?

00:25That was not the comparison I was expecting this morning. But I do think there is an issue

00:31here about reform of public services and let me tell you, there are two bosses that I am

00:40accountable to, my direct line manager, which is the Prime Minister, and then of course

00:44there are my ultimate bosses, which are the British people and the people of Ilford North

00:48who send me to Parliament. I know that they're going to judge me and they're going to judge

00:52this government on whether at the next election waiting lists are lower, waiting times are

00:57shorter and whether they see an NHS that is improving rather than failing. And that's

01:02why we've got to make sure that alongside the investment announced by the Chancellor

01:06is reform to make the NHS more efficient, to make it more productive and to give the

01:11staff the tools to do the job. Because let me tell you, it's not the frontline staff

01:15the public have doubt in. In fact, they consistently rate doctors, nurses, other frontline NHS

01:20staff as the people they trust most, not just in the NHS, but in the whole country.

01:24But we definitely need to improve the leadership, the management, the accountability of the NHS.

01:29In a year's time though, as both of you have worked hard to try and drive efficiency in

01:34big government departments with big budgets, would you welcome meeting with Elon Musk to

01:40compare notes of what works and what doesn't work?

01:44I'd be very surprised if I see that meeting in my diary. But one of the things that I

01:48have been doing as Health and Social Care Secretary in not just the last four months,

01:52but actually the last few years when I was shadowing the job as well, is learning from

01:57frontline NHS staff, learning from our best NHS leaders and also learning from people

02:04who lead organisations, whether public services or businesses, in a whole range of contexts.

02:10Because what I've got on my hands is a big change management challenge in one of the

02:15biggest public services in the world, a vital piece of critical national infrastructure,

02:21one that has enormous potential, but one that has also been failing. The NHS is broken,

02:28but it is not beaten. And what we are doing as a government on both investment and reform

02:33should give people the confidence that we can turn this around and make sure that the

02:37NHS, publicly funded, free at the point of use that's been there for us for the last

02:4176 years, will be there for us in the next century. But we've got to get this right,

02:45because if we fail, then the NHS will not have a future.