Keir Starmer pledges to reduce 'bureaucratic nonsense' in the NHS

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Sir Keir Starmer has promised to get rid of "bureaucratic nonsense" to allow patients to bypass GPs and go to specialists themselves.

The Labor leader has also formally backed his shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting's reforms to effectively nationalize GP services.

Labour has proposed making GPs salaried NHS workers, despite criticism from some quarters of the medical profession.

Sir Keir, writing in the Sunday Telegraph, said that "if we don't realize the reform, the NHS will die" - giving his backing to the overhaul of the current GP model.

Mr. Starmer also said he wanted Labor to be 'bold and brave' in reforming the NHS - but denied any suggestion that he was moving towards privatization of health services.

" Free at the point of use is the founding principle of the NHS, and it's absolutely fundamental to me," he told the BBC on Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg. "It will always be free at the point of use - but that doesn't mean we shouldn't also use the private sector."

The Labor leader added: "It is not the private sector that is the reform that we are looking for. I want a preventative model, we are living longer but that means the NHS needs to change – earlier intervention, more technology… If we don't reform the health service it will be in controlled decline.

The pledges echo New Labor promises in 1997, when Sir Tony Blair came to power following a manifesto promising to cut NHS waiting times and make the more patient-centred service.

Sir Keir used his article to present a series of reforms. He said Labor would seek to free up healthcare professional time by removing "mundane inconveniences and inefficiencies" that ultimately "result in a mind-boggling waste of time".

Such improvements, he suggested, should include those with back problems who can self-refer to physios - a policy which is currently being tested by some trusts.

He also gradually supported "the introduction phase of a new system" for GPs, turning family doctors into direct NHS employees. The current model sees independent GPs running their own practices under contracts awarded by the NHS.

But the Leader of the Opposition said it was time to accept that the system required ...