The prime minister has said it is his mission to get NHS waiting lists down and make it "fit for the future". Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves were addressing NHS workers in the West Midlands, a day after the chancellor announced a £22.6bn cash injection into the health service in her Autumn Budget. Report by Brooksl. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00In that budget, I've tried to fix the foundations and wipe the slate clean after a lot of the
00:06economic instability and chaos we've seen the last few years. I tried to do that in
00:11a way that as much as possible protected the living standards of ordinary working people.
00:18But I did have to make difficult decisions on tax yesterday, but they were necessary
00:22to bring the stability back to our economy and to ensure that we had the money for the
00:26National Health Service. And I was able to announce £22.6 billion of additional money
00:31for day-to-day spending in the health service to bring the waiting lists down. We made a
00:36commitment in our manifesto for 40,000 extra appointments every single week in the NHS
00:42and I'm confident that the money that we set aside yesterday will enable us to deliver
00:46that, working together to deliver that. And in addition to that, £3.1 billion for capital
00:52investment in the NHS, hospital beds, hospital improvement, the diagnostic equipment and
00:58scanners that you need to be able to do your job. So I hope that that will make a difference
01:03to you as staff in the National Health Service and a huge thanks from Keir and me and all
01:07of us for what you do. Look, we are a government that's only four months in at the moment,
01:13but I hope you can begin to see the change that we're bringing about. Most of all and
01:18really important, we're going to be a mission-driven government and that means a driving sense
01:23of purpose. But one of the other missions, and there's only five, is the NHS and the
01:29mission there is to pick the NHS up, to get those 40,000 appointments and treatments done
01:37every week to get the waiting lists down, but to do more than that, actually to make
01:42sure the NHS is fit for the future. Obviously it was really important yesterday for us to
01:46put more money into the NHS to make sure day-to-day we can relieve some of the pressure, allow
01:52you to get on with the job that you need to get on with. You don't need us to tell you
01:55how important that is. Also put in more money on capital for the longer term that changes
02:01the technology that you're going to need. All of that has to be done with reform and
02:07change at the same time. We inherited a pretty bad situation with the budget, there's not
02:11much money left in the economy. Some of the money that should have been accounted for
02:16wasn't accounted for, so we've had to make difficult decisions. £22 billion worth of
02:21money which wasn't on the books back in March when the last government did the sums. We've
02:26had to deal with all of that. That's obviously a challenge, but let's use it as an opportunity
02:30to say, well in which case, let's be mission driven, let's make sure that we get the NHS
02:35where it needs to be. I look forward to working with you on that journey. So thank you very much.