“Murray ought to listen to the concerns of NHS Staff and their representative unions, and do what Streeting failed to: improve the working conditions for NHS staff.”
By Keep Our NHS Public
The new Health Secretary, James Murray, has vowed to continue Wes Streeting’s work. While this does not inspire optimism, Murray could well adopt a more constructive approach.
Wes Streeting has left the NHS and the nation’s health in a dire situation, leaving much urgent work for his successor. Murray, Labour and Co-operative MP for Ealing North since 2019, is the 9th Health Secretary since 2018, and like all his predecessors, has little relevant experience. It is, of course, common in the UK parliamentary system for government ministers to have no prior professional experience or specialist expertise in the departments they run. This makes them dependent at least initially on senior civil servants and policy advisors, and one hopes that they will also learn by being prepared to listen to the workforce.
Murray is a former Treasury minister who, according to the Guardian, has spent most of his parliamentary career toeing the party line, staying out of the headlines and quietly burnishing his credentials as a reliable cabinet colleague. Born and raised in west London, where his mother was a Labour councillor, Murray studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford before working for Emily Thornberry and then moving into local government. An Islington councillor from 2006-16, he was then appointed Deputy Mayor of London for housing and residential development, overseeing the affordable homes programme. Reputed to be a tough negotiator, he has also worked as a management consultant.
In addition to a short stint on the health and social care select committee during the Covid pandemic in 2020, Murray has been an NHS patient, having been diagnosed and treated effectively for myasthenia gravis – a serious condition that causes muscle weakness. During his maiden speech in March 2020, he told MPs they ‘must win the battle for the NHS and the social care system that we need’ and that he would ‘fight every day for our NHS with the strength that it has given me back’. On his personal website, cutting NHS waiting times also features as a priority, along with creating more evening and weekend appointments, ‘paid for by a crackdown on tax avoidance and non-doms’.
Regarding Keir Starmer, he has commented: ‘The PM has said more needs to change, and we need to offer people more hope. The right thing is not for us to turn inward but to get on with what we were elected to do.’ Murray’s voting record shows he has consistently backed ministers on controversial legislation, including welfare overhauls, winter fuel changes and border security measures, but also voted in favour of the assisted dying bill and for fewer obstacles to access for abortion. He has a reputation for caution and discipline and is regarded as one of a generation of loyal, managerial Labour politicians elevated once Starmer became Labour leader. Unlike his predecessor, he has accepted very little in the way of donations, and, so far, nothing from the realm of private healthcare.
Murray says he’s ‘deeply honoured to be appointed’ to his new brief and plans to continue ‘Wes Streeting’s brilliant work on such a critical mission’. Among the challenges with which he is now faced are long waiting lists, the danger of missing promised targets by the next election, corridor care, resolving the long-running resident doctors’ dispute, and easing the NHS Modernisation Bill through parliament. The Royal College of Nursing was quick off the mark to call on him for delivery of improvements needed across health and care, including long-overdue reform of pay and career progression for nursing staff, to be top of the agenda. While the care sector has not responded to his appointment, the National Care Forum’s chief executive complained of ‘slim pickings for adult social care in the King’s speech, adding that the timeframes set by the government for the Casey Commission report ‘have served to undermine the government’s commitment to any urgency attached to desperately needed reform and the development of a National Care Service’.
The hope for many NHS staff is that their working conditions might, over time, be dramatically improved, including safe staffing requirements being met. Any new Health Secretary needs to gain insight into the realities of the difficulties faced by NHS staff and the service they work in. Murray ought to listen to the concerns of NHS Staff and their representative unions, and do what Streeting failed to: improve the working conditions for NHS staff.
We are anxious to meet with James Murray and hope he will turn around this Labour government’s weak record on the NHS. If he really wants to ensure that we ‘win the battle for the NHS and the social care system that we need’ our message is clear: to achieve effectiveness, equity and resilience in health and care, we need to build a consensus involving the public and all key stakeholders based on: 1. core values of decency, security, justice and compassion; 2. understanding of evidence about the level and nature of health needs and how to achieve the three goals of effectiveness, equity and resilience; 3. the myths that hold health, care and support services back must be exposed, for example, that they represent costs rather than assets, that they are unaffordable, that privatisation brings efficiency and that public health is solely about personal choice. Now is the time for James Murray to work towards delivering on his commitment to ‘‘fight every day for our NHS with the strength that it has given me back’.
- You can follow Keep Our NHS Public on Facebook, Twitter/X, Instagram and TikTok, and sign up to their mailing list here.
- This article was originally published on Keep Our NHS Public’s website on 22 May 2026.
- If you support Labour Outlook’s work amplifying the voices of left movements and struggles here and internationally, please consider becoming a supporter on Patreon.
Used under Creative Commons Licence
