Health secretary Wes Streeting has urged the public, clinicians and experts all to submit ideas for the future shape of the NHS.
In what has been branded by the government, “the biggest national conversation about the future of the NHS since its birth”, the responses gathered between now and the beginning of next year will help shape the government’s 10-Year Health Plan to ‘fix’ the NHS.
A new online platform, Change.NHS.uk, has been set up to gather in responses, which is available via the NHS app.
The 10 Year Health Plan will be published in spring 2025 and will be underlined by three big shifts in healthcare – hospital to community, analogue to digital, and sickness to prevention – the government has said.
As part of the first shift ‘from hospital to community’, the government is aiming to deliver plans for new neighbourhood health centres, which will be closer to homes and communities.
Access to healthcare
Long NHS waits hampering employee return to work
NHS reform will mean employers need to rethink workplace health too
Patients will be able to see GPs, district nurses, care workers, physiotherapists, health visitors, or mental health specialists all under the same roof, it has said.
In transforming the NHS from analogue to digital, the intent is to bring together a single patient record, summarising patient health information, test results, and letters in one place, again through the NHS app.
New laws will be introduced to make NHS patient health records available across all NHS trusts, GP surgeries and ambulance services in England.
By moving from sickness to prevention, the government has said it wants to shorten the amount of time people spend in ill health and prevent illnesses before they happen.
As an example, the 10 Year Health Plan will explore how smart watches and other wearable tech may offer patients with diabetes or high blood pressure, so they can monitor their own health from the comfort of their own home.
Prime minister Keir Starmer said: “We have a clear plan to fix the health service, but it’s only right that we hear from the people who rely on the NHS every day to have their say and shape our plan as we deliver it. Together we can build a healthcare system that puts patients first and delivers the care that everyone deserves.”
Streeting added: “I urge everyone to go to Change.NHS.uk today and help us build a health service fit for the future.”
The launch of this massive public consultation follows the publication of surgeon Lord Ara Darzi’s independent review of the health service, which also recommended a pivot to a more preventative healthcare-focused service.
Lord Darzi said of the latest plan: “As my recent investigation found, the NHS is in need of urgent and fundamental reform. The 10 Year Health Plan comes at a crucial moment – and by describing the ultimate destination for the health service, it will help improve decision-making in the here and now.”
Separately, the health think-tank The Health Foundation has published research arguing the NHS faces four key structural challenges: fragmentation; lack of clear system leadership; lack of political independence; and limited cross-government coordination.
The foundation has highlighted the decision during the Covid-19 pandemic by then health secretary Matt Hancock to dissolve Public Health England and replace it with the UK Health Security Agency, to lead on health protection, and the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities, focusing on health improvement.
“Government needs to decide whether to establish a new public health executive agency with a dual mission of health improvement and health protection, or to introduce measures that ensure better coordination between existing structures and enable greater independence and accountability,” the foundation has said.
“Prioritising health and prevention is a political choice. It is possible that existing public health structures would be more effective if they were simply more adequately resourced by the new government, alongside the new health mission board facilitating more effective cross-government working.
“However, without additional structural changes, national and regional public health systems and programmes in England would remain vulnerable to being deprioritised and rendered less effective in the future. Instead, the government has a chance now to establish public health structures that have the levers, stability and resilience required to meet the nation’s longer-term challenges,” it added.
Alongside this, the key to any national prevention agenda is an adequately resourced public health workforce, the foundation has recommended.
“There is a crucial need for a national public health workforce plan, complementing the refresh of the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan,” it said.
Projections by the foundation have also suggested more than seven million people in England will be suffering from chronic pain by 2040, from just over five million in 2019, with musculoskeletal conditions, arthritis, back pain and osteoporosis key drivers of this trend.
Those aged 50 to 69 will be the most affected, with some left in such pain that they cannot work, the analysis has argued.
This will also mean the NHS needs to rethink how it cares for people with, again, more of a focus on preventative healthcare and community-based support.
Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance
Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday
