A 10 year plan for the NHS? Here we go again 

Ten-year plans for the NHS are popular with health secretaries.  In 2000,  Alan Milburn published his to great acclaim.  It was signed by health organisations, unions, patient organisation and charities, so there was no criticisms from the usual critics to spoil the day.

Theresa May and the then head of the NHS, Sir Simon Stevens, launched the NHS 10-year Plan in 2019 aimed at shifting resources out of hospitals and into the  community, and in particular improving mental health services.  It also came alongside the NHS funding settlement.

And here we are again – a consultation launched today by the current Health and Social Care Secretary, Wes Streeting, and the prime minister ahead of a 10 year plan for the NHS to be published next spring.

With Alan Milburn as an adviser, perhaps it was inevitable that this would be the direction of travel .   Journalist and author, Nick Timmins, quoted Mr Milburn as saying the best political trick he had pulled off was publishing the plan because it ‘bought time’.

Reforming the NHS, he said, was a long journey and while there are milestones that can be achieved along the way, it is a 10 year journey, not a five year one.

Today’s launch carries the same message.  While there are those impatient for improvements now and for a financial settlement, Mr Streeting has focused on his three goals: from analogue to digital, hospitals to the community, and sickness to prevention. All of which will clearly take time.

The public engagement exercise is billed as the biggest national conversation about the future of the NHS since its birth, with the ‘entire country’ called upon to share their experiences and ideas.

Mr Streeting emphasised that this was not because the government was devoid of its own ideas, and repeated his enthusiasm for the upgrading of the NHS app, which could be used to bring together a single patient record, summarising patient health information, test results and letters in one place.

He said new laws will be introduced to make NHS patient health records available across all NHS trusts, GP surgeries and ambulance services in England – speeding up patient care, reducing repeat medical tests, and minimising medication errors.

Systems will be able to share data more easily, saving an estimated 140,000 hours of NHS staff time every year, because they will have quicker access to patient data, saving time that can then be spent face-to-face with patients who need it most and potentially saving lives.

In the meantime, there is winter looming and if it is a bad flu and Covid season, the pressures on the NHS will be the focus of attention.  And that is what the government will need to acknowledge, which is the need for both short, medium and long-term plans.