Wes Streeting won’t end the 8am GP appointment scramble

You can say it for Wes Streeting: he doesn’t hang about. Reacting to the heavy loss of council seats in last week’s elections, he is proffering £102 million of money for extra GPs’ appointments – hopefully to end what has been termed the “8am scramble”: a kind of Hunger Games which NHS patients have to go through in order to be seen.

The Health Secretary has been pointed in trying to attribute this funding boost to the very unpopular rise in employers’ national insurance contributions in last autumn’s Budget.

“None of this would be possible without the national insurance rise to fund the extra investment,” he says. “Other parties opposed the NICs rise, which would have meant more patients waiting for treatment, fewer GPs and no pay rises for staff.”

So there you go: you have to suffer so NHS workers can enjoy a pay rise, but it is all in a good cause because it means you might find it a little easier to get an appointment.