Milburn set to take senior health department role and says crisis is ‘million times worse’ than when he was in office

The NHS is “drinking in the last-chance saloon” and needs to change, the former health secretary Alan Milburn has said as he prepares to take up a senior role in the Department of Health.

Milburn, who brought about radical changes, such as the introduction of NHS foundation trusts, when he was a minister for Tony Blair, called for “cultural change” in the health service and said “big reforms will be needed to make it fit for the future”.