Sir Keir Starmer has declared that “the future already looks better for the NHS” as he unveiled the government’s 10-year plan for the health service.
Speaking at the Sir Ludwig Guttmann Health Centre in east London, surrounded by NHS staff, the prime minister explained that his government will fix the health service by moving care into the community, digitising the NHS, and focusing on sickness prevention.
The aim is to shift care away from under-pressure medical facilities and closer to people’s homes, while taking measures to prevent people needing treatment in the first place.
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Core elements of his plan include a hugely enhanced NHS app to give patients more control over their care and access to more data, new neighbourhood health centres open six days a week and at least 12 hours a day, and new laws on food and alcohol to prevent ill health.
Sir Keir said before the general election a year ago there were record waiting lists for treatment, patient satisfaction was at the lowest level ever, and thousands have been forced to wait more than six hours in A&E, despite the efforts of NHS staff.
Sir Keir Starmer has unveiled the government’s 10-year plan for health. Pic: PA
He argued that the government had already done much to start turning things around, pointing to new NHS staff recruited in mental health and general practice, 170 diagnostic centres now open, new surgical hubs, mental health units, ambulance sites, and “record investment right across the system”.
But he added: “I’m not going to stand here and say everything is perfect now – we have a lot more work to do, and we will do it.
“Because of the fair choices we made, the tough Labour decisions we made, the future already looks better for the NHS.”
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The prime minister was accompanied by Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who was making her first public appearance since she was seen crying during Prime Minister’s Questions.
He would not say why she had been upset, telling journalists that it was a “personal matter”, and praised her work as chancellor, saying the investment the government is making in the NHS is “all down to the foundation we laid this year, all down to the path of renewal that we chose, the decisions made by the chancellor, by Rachel Reeves”.
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Ms Reeves also spoke at the event, saying: “I want to be clear, we are spending money on taxpayers’ priorities, but that wouldn’t have been possible without the measures that we took in the budget last year.
“We fixed the foundations and we’ve put our economy back on a strong footing.”
The 10-year plan set out a series of measures to move the NHS from analogue systems to new digital ones, move from treatment to prevention, and deliver more healthcare in the community, with the aim of ending the “status quo of hospital by default”.
There will be new neighbourhood health to give people access to a full range of services, leaving hospitals to focus on the sickest, and advice on debt, employment, stopping smoking, and obesity will also be available.
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Core elements of the plan include:
- Making the NHS app “a full front door to the entire NHS” by 2028 to help patients access the full range of services available;
- A single patient record and personalised information to stop patients having to repeat details of their health issue;
- An expansion of wearable technology to make it the “standard in preventative, chronic and post-acute NHS treatment by 2035”;
- 85 new mental health emergency departments so people do not end up in A&E;
- New restrictions on the junk food advertising targeted at children, a ban on the sale of high-caffeine energy drinks to under 16-year-olds, reforms to the soft drinks industry levy, and a new “mandatory requirement for alcoholic drinks to display consistent nutritional information and health warning messages”;
- Forcing dentists to work for the NHS for at least three years if they have been trained at taxpayers’ expense;
- An end to the “disgraceful spectacle of corridor care” and ensuring 95% of people wait no longer than 18 weeks for routine care;
- Priority to be given to UK medical graduates and an ambition to reduce international recruitment to less than 10% by 2035.
Plan ‘still sketchy on detail’
The plan has been cautiously welcomed by trade unions and the broader health industry, but there has been criticism that the plan lacks detail.
Sarah Woolnough, chief executive of the King’s Fund, said: “There are more than 150 pages of a vision of how things could be different in the NHS by 2035, but nowhere near enough detail about how it will be implemented.”
Royal College of Nursing (RCN) general secretary, Professor Nicola Ranger, said: “Nursing staff are crying out for change and we stand ready to get behind this plan.
“Modernising services, bringing care closer to home and helping people to lead healthier lives couldn’t be more necessary…
“Nursing staff are identified today as the expert leaders to deliver a neighbourhood health service and that should be truly empowering. As the professionals delivering the vast majority of care, we know what keeps patients safe and well.”
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The Conservative shadow health secretary said the government’s “long-term goals are right”, but warned that the plans is “still sketchy on some of the details of delivery”.
Edward Argar told the Commons: “It is ambitious, I believe his long-term goals are right and that the reforms he sets out today build on the reforms we set out and carried out. The desire to shift care from hospital to community, to better use technology and to move to prevention are not new at all, but they remain vital.”
