The Reform UK leader was condemned for comments broadcast on the day of the local elections in England.
09:58, 01 May 2025Updated 11:02, 01 May 2025
Reform UK leader Nigel Farage (Image: Stefan Rousseau/PA)
Nigel Farage has been slammed after he said he no longer wanted the NHS to be funded from “general taxation”.
The Reform UK leader said the current model is “not working” just as voters went to polls in England.
Labour Health secretary Wes Streeting said: “Nigel Farage has said the quiet part out loud: he doesn’t want a publicly funded NHS.
“With Farage’s plans to leave people paying over a grand for an A&E trip only one thing is clear – patients would be worse off under Reform.”
In an interview with Sky News, Farage, whose anti-immigration party is expected to make sweeping gains in the local and mayoral elections, was asked about how to fund the NHS.
He replied: “I do not want it funded through general taxation. It doesn’t work. It’s not working. We’re getting worse bang for the buck than any other country…”
“I want it free at the point of delivery, but it’s how we get there.”
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MP Farage has a history of making criticisms about the way the NHS is funded.
He said over a decade ago: “I think we’re going to have to think about healthcare very, very differently. I think we are going to have to move to an insurance-based system of healthcare.”
He said more recently: “I was given almost pariah status for suggesting the NHS model isn’t working. I haven’t shifted my position.
“We’ve got to identify a system of funding for healthcare that is more effective than the one we have currently got, and at the same time carries those who can’t afford to pay.”
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar used an interview last year to attack Farage on the NHS.
He said: “The idea that somehow a political party that advocates breaking the principle of the NHS, making it a private insurance scheme where people are having to mortgage their homes, take out huge loans in order to get the most basic of health treatment, is not a model that we want to see here in Scotland and I don’t think would be accepted by the Scottish people.”
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