There is a real sense among health and care sector colleagues that work towards the promised reforms is gathering pace.
The Government’s 10-Year Plan will be published in spring 2025, and the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care spoke at the NHS Providers conference doubling down on the urgency.
“The NHS is already living on borrowed time.”
You can watch his speech in full here.
What you might have missed
There were two lines that are extremely important and which we will raise with Paul Corrigan at our meeting next week. They won’t get media attention though.
The first was the need for the NHS to use its collective buying power to get better value for money. We agree entirely but wonder why that’s not possible when it comes to technology and innovation?
The second, he talked about giving NHS providers greater freedom to innovate. It’s an important signal to NHS leaders that they can and should explore new ways to solve old problems.
Delivering the 10-Year Plan
The reforming former Health Secretary, Alan Milburn, has been appointed as lead non-executive member of the board of the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).
You can read about his appointment here.
Detailing how the plan will come together, No 10 announced the 10 Year Health Plan working groups. Four will consider the vision for the NHS and 7 will look at what needs to change to deliver said vision.
Each group will have two co-chairs – one from either DHSC or NHS England and another independent of those organisations.
Data and technology
Tasked with looking at how the NHS should maximise the impact of data and technology, this working group will be co-chaired by Ming Tang from NHS England.
Dr Tim Ferris, of Harvard Medical School will be her co-chair. He was previously National Director of Transformation at NHS England.
Finance and contracting
This group will look at finance and contracting from the perspective of focusing on prevention and delivering services in the community AND making the best use of digital services and technology.
The co-chairs are Julian Kelly, NHS England’s Deputy Chief Executive and Chief Financial Officer and Bill McCarthy of Leeds Trinity University. Bill was previously Director of Policy at NHS England and Director-General at the then Department of Health.
You can read more about the working groups here.
As mentioned, the DHC has arranged for members to meet with Paul Corrigan next week. He’s an important member of Wes Streetings’ top team.
DHC will continue to work on behalf of members to ensure they have a voice as the Government brings its plan together.