Labour has pledged to double the number of CT and MRI scanners in hospitals in England as part of an increased focus on early diagnosis and treatment.
The shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, said the NHS needed to “modernise or die” and that investment in new equipment would be key to bringing waiting lists down and delivering better outcomes.
Figures released last month show that a record 7.7 million people in England – about one in seven – are waiting to start routine hospital treatment.
The pledge comes as Labour MPs and members prepare to gather for the party’s annual conference, which gets under way in Liverpool on Sunday.
Streeting said that if Labour won the next election it would invest £171m a year in a “fit for the future” fund to deliver upgrades to the health service.
“Unless it modernises and reforms it will die,” he told the Times.
“Not just because of the immediate crisis of the worst waiting lists in the history of the NHS, but the longer-term challenges we face in terms of our ageing society, the prevalence of chronic disease.”
He said Labour wanted to move the health service from being a system that “effectively does late-stage treatment” to being one that detects and treats illnesses as quickly as possible.
“If you can diagnose faster you can get people treated more quickly, which is often far less expensive and leads to better outcomes,” he said.
Streeting, who was successfully treated for stage one kidney cancer in 2021, described himself as a “walking, talking case study” in how the NHS can function well.
“There will be people being diagnosed at stage three and stage four simply because the NHS couldn’t reach them in time. It breaks my heart,” he said.
Streeting also used the interview to criticise the Conservative party for being “in hock to cranks, crackpots and conspiracy theorists on the right”.
During last week’s Conservative party conference, the energy secretary, Claire Coutinho, claimed Labour was “relaxed about taxing meat”, a policy it has never supported, while the transport secretary, Mark Harper, claimed that proposed 15-minute cities would allow local councils to “decide how often you go to the shops”.
Rishi Sunak was also criticised for saying in his speech that he was ruling out the possibility that households would be required to have seven bins for their rubbish and recycling, a measure that was never government policy.
“I have never seen cabinet ministers peddle conspiracy theories until this week,” Streeting said.
Labour continues to command a double-digit lead in the polls and is now widely thought to be on course for power after more than a decade in opposition.
The party is expected to court support from business and industry at it conference, where Goldman Sachs, Boeing, and Amazon are sponsoring events and exhibition space is said to be in high demand.
Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, has also told the Guardian that a Labour government would “deliver the biggest boost to affordable housing for a generation” by getting tough on developers and reforming planning rules.
