Prime Minister Keir Starmer said on Thursday he would scrap a body overseeing the state-funded health system in England in a bid save hundreds of millions of pounds and cut waiting lists and bureaucracy.

NHS England - the administrative body which runs the national health service - is be abolished in a bid to slash red tape, Sir Keir Starmer has announced.

The NHS is the largest public sector organisation in England, seeing 1.7 million people each day including in patients’ own homes, local GP surgeries, pharmacies and hospitals. It employs 1.7 million people, is funded largely out of general taxation, and has an annual budget of about £190 billion.