Health minister resigns

The minister for health innovation and safety resigned this afternoon, becoming the fourth government minister to leave, saying the public in the UK “has now irretrievably lost confidence in you [Keir Starmer] as prime minister”, and asking him to step aside.

Mr Ahmed, the MP for Glasgow South West, trained as a transplant surgeon and continued to practise in Glasgow part-time. He is seen as an ally of health and social care secretary Wes Streeting in any battle for the premiership. He was elected to Parliament in 2024 and initially served as Parliamentary private assistant to Mr Streeting.

He wrote in his resignation letter: “Throughout the entirety of my surgical career, I have been guided by the principles of precision, clarity, candour and above all else an aspiration for excellence… and it is those principles that lead me to conclude that your continuation in office is wholly untenable.”

He told the Financial Times last year that the NHS should “lever” NHS data for the “benefit of the Treasury’s coffers”. Although he was only briefly in office – he was appointed in September 2025 - he was seen as being influential in the government’s approach to health technology.

In his resignation letter, he said he was “proud of delivering a life sciences sector that is now reputationally world-class with turbocharged clinical trials delivering innovative life-changing medicines to UK patients faster than ever before”. 

He added he had used his clinical experience “to accelerate the digital transformation of our NHS and had been planning the rollout of the NHS online hospital later this year”.

“It has been truly humbling to start the work of correcting some of the wrongs suffered by those harmed by valproate and women harmed by pelvic mesh,” he said.

Mr Ahmed told a fringe meeting at the Labour party conference last year that the forthcoming 10-Year Workforce Plan will focus on “a philosophical intent of what roles we need” rather than “prescriptive numbers” on staffing requirements.