Sir Keir Starmer has hinted that he would phase out private healthcare and implement a 'ten-year plan' for the NHS if he were Prime Minister.
Speaking to the BBC's Political Thinking podcast, the Labour leader described how his mother – who worked as nurse and regarded the health service as her 'lifeline' – feared a move towards privatisation if 'things got really bad'.
Sir Keir's mother Josephine died in 2015 just two weeks before he was elected for Holborn and St Pancras, following a long battle with Still's disease, an incurable autoimmune condition.
Her passion for the NHS ran so deep, Sir Keir told host Nick Robinson, that she even held her son's hand as she lay dying in an intensive care unit and urged him: 'You won't let your dad go private, will you?'.
How the health service should be organised, and how to cut massive waiting lists, has become a hot button issue in public life.
Tony Blair's methods of cutting these lists – by bringing in the private sector so that people could have operations – proved controversial within the Labour Party and led to allegations that he wanted to 'sell off' the NHS.
Asked what he would do to cut waiting lists if he were Prime Minister, Sir Keir told host Nick Robinson: 'I would listen to my mum in this, and that's why we need a better plan for the NHS which is about money.
Sir Keir Starmer has hinted that he would phase out private healthcare and implement a 'proper ten-year plan' for the NHS if he were Prime Minister
Speaking to the BBC's Political Thinking podcast, the Labour leader described how his mother Josephine (pictured) – who worked as nurse and regarded the health service as her 'lifeline all her life' – feared a move towards privatisation if 'things got really bad'
'But it's also about a lot more than money, it's about using technology in a
