Health and care sector latest developments
Government publishes ten-year health plan
Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, has today launched the government’s ten-year plan.
The plan says that the government will reinvent the NHS through three radical shifts from hospital to community, analogue to digital and sickness to prevention.
As part of the plan, neighbourhood health centres will house services such as diagnostics, mental health, post-op, rehab and nursing under one roof, bringing them closer to people’s homes.
The government has also vowed to train thousands more family doctors, transform hospital outpatient appointments and provide personalised care plans for complex needs.
The Prime Minister launched the plan in Stratford this morning alongside chancellor, Rachel Reeves, and health secretary, Wes Streeting.
Health secretary Wes Streeting also gave a statement to parliament in which he outlined details of the plan to MPs.
Responding to the launch, chief executive of the NHS Confederation Matthew Taylor welcomed the plan and described it as “a landmark moment for both the NHS and wider health and care system.” He added: “Boosting neighbourhood health services is a vital step towards a more preventative, community-based NHS. Bringing care closer to people’s homes through neighbourhood health teams recognises the complex and interconnected challenges many patients face.”
Elsewhere, the Health Service Journal has reported that the plan was published without a planned chapter on how the changes it proposes will be delivered. It added that the delivery plan could be incorporated into the NHS England planning guidance for 2026/27, which it is proposing to publish much earlier than in previous years, possibly as early as September.
NHS England chief: Multiple ACO-style providers to be ‘created next year’
Chief executive of NHS England, Sir Jim Mackey, has said that he expects several of the NHS’s first integrated health organisations (IHOs) to be created next year.
According to the ten-year health plan, the best performing foundation trusts will be allowed to evolve into IHOs which will be given a capitated budget to run a wide range of range of acute, community and primary care services for their population.
Sir Jim told the Health Service Journal that:
- many of the proposals put forward in the plan would be driven by detailed strategies developed “before winter”
- the debate on how far the NHS should move away from block contracts was still ongoing
- deficit funding will effectively be phased out from next year using “pace of change” allocation policy – while health secretary Wes Streeting last week said “the fund will not go to trusts which run deficits this year”
- the Treasury remain unconvinced about allowing private lenders to provide NHS capital funding for hospitals.
Matt Hancock: COVID-19 care home policy was 'least-worst decision'
Former health secretary, Matt Hancock, has denied claims that the government's attempt to throw a protective ring around care homes in 2020, early in the COVID-19 pandemic, was empty rhetoric.
Giving evidence to the COVID-19 inquiry, he said the decision to discharge patients from hospitals into care homes when testing was not available, was “the least-worst solution”.
Nicola Brook, a lawyer representing bereaved families called his comments “an insult to the memory of each and every person who died”.
As health secretary, Hancock was responsible for care services in England where more than 43,000 people died with COVID-19 between March 2020 and January 2022, many of them in the early weeks of the pandemic.
During his evidence to the inquiry, he also said that the social care sector “was badly in need of and remains badly in need of reform”, adding that in the event of another pandemic, he feared the situation had become “worse not better”.
Deputy Prime Minister speaks at Local Government Association conference
Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner delivered a speech at the Local Government Association’s conference in Liverpool.
During her speech, she referenced Labour’s spending on social care, including a £4 billion uplift to adult social care, a targeted recovery grant of £600m for the areas most in need and the doubling of the direct investment in preventative children’s social care services.
She acknowledged concerns from the sector that, despite the huge sums councils are spending on public services including both adult and children’s social care, and SEND, services are still not working for the people who need them.
The deputy PM said that public services need reform and that the onus is on the government to work with councils to deliver it.
Restaurants could be forced to report customer calorie counts to help combat obesity
Restaurants could be forced to report the number of calories customers consume as part of a government move to crack down on obesity.
The Department of Health and Social Care would expect restaurants with more than 250 employees to report the average number of calories diners consume under the plans, which are set to be put to public consultation.
The data would be used to make big restaurant chains and fast-food giants 'increase the healthiness of sales' and reduce the food intake of customers.
Kate Nicholls, the chief executive of UK Hospitality, a trade body that represents restaurants, said the industry had been “totally blindsided” by the plans.
