Keir Starmer will promise to set up a new service known as NHS Online from 2027 to create millions of new appointments and stamp out long waits for treatment
Patients will be able to use a new ‘online hospital’ from 2027, with millions of extra appointments created to slash waits for care, Keir Starmer will announce.
From 2027, the newly created NHS Online will radically reshape the system by connecting people to specialist doctors through the NHS App.
The Prime Minister will declare a “new world is coming” as he unveils the plans in his keynote speech to Labour conference.
He will say: “In decades to come, I want people to look back on this moment as the moment we renewed the NHS for a new world.”
Patients will be able to access prescriptions, get referred for scans and tests and receive clinical advice from their own homes.
High priority treatments with long waiting lists will be targeted first, with the scheme expanded to more conditions over time.
READ MORE: Keir Starmer slaps down ‘grubby’ Nigel Farage – ‘as unpatriotic as you get’
The move is expected to deliver 8.5million appointments in the first three years, cutting long waits for treatment.
Patients will always have the choice between using NHS Online and their local hospital, so they can see a doctor in person if they prefer.
But the new digital service is designed to cut waits for in-person appointments by diverting those who want to use the app from the queue.
It will build on innovations, such as a virtual triage system in Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust which sped up referrals for specialist care as well as discharges from hospital.
Mr Starmer will heap praise on hard-working NHS staff, but add: “The responsibility of this party is not just to celebrate the NHS, it’s to make it better.”
He will tell Labour’s annual conference in Liverpool: “A new chapter in the story of our NHS, harnessing the future, patients in control.
“Waiting times cut for every single person in this country. That’s national renewal, that’s a Britain built for all.”
The PM is expected to ramp up his attacks on Nigel Farage by taking aim at the Reform leader for floating the idea of an insurance-based model for the NHS.
The battle with Mr Farage will be at the heart of the speech after the PM took the gloves off at the weekend with an attack on Reform’s “racist” immigration policy.
But Mr Starmer will also use his big moment to urge Labour MPs to unite against the populist right rather than internal struggles after swirling questions about his leadership.
He will say that the country “stands at a fork in the road”, with a defining choice between “decency” and “division”.
Evoking memories of the post-war Labour government, he will spell out the scale of the challenge ahead – and warn of more tough choices to come.
He will say: “It is a test. A fight for the soul of our country, every bit as big as rebuilding Britain after the war, and we must all rise to this challenge.
“And yet we need to be clear that our path, the path of renewal, it’s long, it’s difficult, it requires decisions that are not cost-free or easy. Decisions that will not always be comfortable for our party.”
In a nod to his critics inside and outside the Labour Party, he will say that he can deliver that change.
He will say: “No matter how many people tell me it can’t be done, I believe Britain can come together. We can pursue a shared destination.
“We can unite around a common good. That’s my ambition, the purpose of this Government. End decline, reform our public services, grow our economy from the grassroots.”
And he will offer hope to voters of a light at the end of the tunnel. He will say: “At the end of this hard road there will be a new country, a fairer country, a land of dignity and respect.
“Everyone seen, everyone valued, wealth creation in every single community, working people in control of their public services, the mindless bureaucracy, that chokes enterprise, removed – so we can build and keep on building.”
READ MORE: Join our Mirror politics WhatsApp group to get the latest updates from Westminster