Streeting orders “raw and frank” investigation of NHS
New UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting had only been in post a day before declaring the NHS ‘broken’. Now, he has commissioned an investigation to get a clearer picture of the challenges it faces.
The independent probe will be led by Professor Lord Ara Darzi, an eminent surgeon at Imperial College London, who served as a health minister in the Labour government in 2007 under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
Darzi spearheaded an NHS review in 2008 that called for sweeping changes to tackle variations in the quality of care across the country, led by frontline staff at the local level.
The latest investigation is scheduled to deliver its findings in September and will form the basis of a 10-year plan to “radically reform the NHS and build a health service that is fit for the future” – which ties in with Streeting’s earlier assertion that fixing the health service will take longer than one term in office and will need “fundamental reform.”
He acknowledged that there will be an urgency for the new government to show progress in the first five years, and has already announced a commitment to reversing the underfunding of primary care, reopened negotiations in a pay dispute with junior doctors, and promised to take steps to make sure whistleblowers cannot be silenced by NHS managers.
“This government will be honest about the challenges facing the health service, and serious about tackling them,” said Streeting in a statement. “This investigation will uncover hard truths and I’ve asked for nothing to be held back. I trust Lord Darzi will leave no stone unturned and have told him to speak truth to power.”
He also pledged to be completely transparent with the findings, with the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) instructed to share whatever is uncovered.
The announcement has come as the latest figures on NHS waiting lists for elective care show the backlog has gone up again, reaching 7.6 million, albeit still below a peak of almost 7.8 million last September.
“As every clinician and every patient knows, the first step to addressing any health problem is a proper diagnosis,” said Darzi. “My work will analyse the evidence to understand where we are today – and how we got to here – so that the health service can move forward.”
The 10-year plan will be led by Sally Warren, who has stepped down as director of policy at the King’s Fund think tank to join DHSC. Warren has previously warned that rising demand for private healthcare in the UK with waiting lists so long could divert healthcare practitioners from providing NHS services, which could have serious implications on NHS capacity.
NHS England chief executive Amanda Pritchard welcomed the investigation, saying: “Frontline NHS staff are doing an incredible job despite the huge pressures, but we know that they face huge struggles and patients are not always getting the timely, high-quality care they need.”
She promised to work with the government, independent experts, and NHS staff “to take a detailed look at the scale of the challenges and set out plans to address them.”
Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash
