Health Secretary on welfare: ‘I'm a product of the state doing things right'
Health Secretary Wes Streeting speaks exclusively to ITV News Health Correspondent Rebecca Barry about his plan to tackle health inequalities
We're in a seaside town, best known for its Pleasure Beach and annual illuminations, but Blackpool 's holiday resort image belies a darker reality.
It's one of the most deprived parts of England, with higher rates of mental illness and the lowest life expectancy.
But areas like this often have the fewest GPs, the worst performing NHS services and the longest waits.
No wonder then, the Health Secretary chose to come here to announce his plan to tackle health inequalities.
'The gap between the rich and poor, between good and bad services is stark,' Wes Streeting told me.
We meet at Whitegate Health Centre, a short drive from the famous seafront. The waiting room of the urgent treatment centre is busy with patients.
The Health Secretary promises that places like this will get more medicines, equipment and a bigger share of GP funding, thanks to £2.2bn saved from 'wasteful' NHS spending.
'If you live somewhere like Blackpool, one of the poorest communities in our country, there are 300 more patients per GP than in the wealthiest areas, so not only is there higher need, there is a poorer service.'
The link between poverty and poor health is well-known. And yet, by the government's own assessment, its planned welfare cuts will push 250,000 people into poverty - potentially adding to the heavy toll which poverty already takes on NHS services.
A Commons vote on the plans to reduce sickness and incapacity benefits is due to go ahead next week, despite 120 Labour MPs having publicly backed a move to block the legislation.
I asked the Health Secretary, who has talked about his own experience growing up in poverty, whether he felt comfortable with the welfare reforms.
'I wouldn't be sat here today without the benefits my mum got,' said Streeting.
'I know better than most how important welfare and social security is and I'm sat here as a product of what happens when the state does things right.
'I support what the government is doing and I think there is support right across the Labour Party for the aims for these reforms.
"I'm not saying there aren't concerns on the specifics, but on the aims, there is almost universal support.'
His announcement on tackling health inequalities forms part of the government's 10 Year Plan for the NHS.
But the Health Secretary confirmed to me that assisted dying will not be mentioned in the document, despite MPs voted in favour of legalising it.
'The 10 Year Plan will not contain assisted dying at this stage because Parliament hasn't finished its deliberations," Streeting told me.
He voted against the bill, but as Health Secretary he will have a key role delivering an assisted dying service in England and Wales, once the bill has made it has way through Parliament.
I asked him if he felt a 'moral dilemma' about that.
'Yes and no,' he told me.
'But ultimately I'm a democrat and I'm a legislator and I respect enormously my colleagues in Parliament on the other side of this debate."
After our interview, I met a woman in the health centre who was using a wheelchair because of her severe arthritis. She told me about her visit to A&E last week - where she was forced to wait eight hours to see a doctor.
I asked her whether she had faith in the government's promise to improve NHS services for England's working-class communities - without hesitation she replied "no".
Communities like this can ill-afford broken promises.
The government's 10 Year Plan to 'fix' the NHS will be revealed in full next week.
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