Former Darlington MP Alan Milburn has been handed a top health ministry role and warned that "big reforms" are needed at the NHS.

The Government has today (November 9) confirmed that Mr Milburn has been appointed lead non-executive member to the board at the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC). 

Mr Milburn served as the Labour MP for Darlington from 1992 to 2010, as well as being the health secretary under Sir Tony Blair between 1999 and 2003. He was also behind the introduction of NHS foundation trusts in 2022. 

Following the appointment, the former MP said the NHS must be “weaned off the ‘more, more, more’ culture”, warning that the service was "drinking in the last-chance saloon". 

He said the NHS will need “big reforms” to make it “fit for the future”. 

In an interview with The Times, Mr Milburn claimed the health service crisis is “a million times worse” than when he was in government. 

He predicted that Mr Streeting would go “further and faster” than New Labour and added: “The NHS has got to be weaned off the ‘more, more, more’ culture, and it’s got to recognise that if you’re going to do big dollops of resources, then that has got to be matched by a massive dose of reform.”

He said there is a “different fiscal climate” now compared with when he was health secretary, adding: “If you’ve broadly got less resourcing than then, you’ve got to do more reforming than then.”

Building “an NHS fit for the future” was one of Labour’s five missions laid out in the election manifesto, when the party promised to cut waiting times, boost appointments, and create a new plan for dentistry. 

Mr Streeting said Mr Milburn “made the reforms which helped deliver the shortest waiting times and highest patient satisfaction in the history of the NHS”.

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He added: “His unique expertise and experience will be invaluable, and he has an outstanding track record of delivering better care for patients.”

Mr Milburn said: “Having spent three decades working in health policy, I have never seen the NHS in a worse state. Big reforms will be needed to make it fit for the future.

“I am confident this Government has the right plans in place to transform the health service and the health of the nation.”