More than a fifth of the extra spending allocated to the NHS is to go towards community care and general practice, it was announced today.
Details of the ten-year NHS Plan were being unveiled by NHS England after the government released key details over the weekend.
Out of £20.5 billion in increased spending, some £4.5 billion will go towards community care and general practice – a significantly larger share than the current spending on these areas of care. Chronic conditions and care of the elderly were among priorities set out by Prime Minister Theresa May yesterday.
The government has also made digitalisation a priority, emphasising its proposals to extend digital access to general practice.
Today ministers were emphasising proposals for improved cardiovascular, stroke and cancer care, claiming it would save an extra 500,000 lives over the ten years. Critics said the plan failed to set out how the service would recruit staff to meet its objectives. NHS England says a workforce plan will be released later this year.
Health secretary Matt Hancock said: “Today’s NHS Long-Term Plan is focused on the idea that prevention is better than cure. It is a comprehensive set of proposals to ensure the NHS does not just meet this challenge but secures the NHS for future generations.
“The plan is the product of thousands of conversations with clinicians, patients and the public right across the country to focus on the priorities that matter to us all.
“The NHS Long Term Plan will grow and better support the workforce and invest in new technologies to bring our health service into the digital age, making it fit for the future.”
Ian Dalton, chief executive of NHS Improvement, said: “At the heart of the NHS are hard-working staff who pull out all the stops to care for patients every day. It is thanks to their dedication that the NHS is admired around the world and that it has taken great strides over the last seven decades.
“We need to build on these achievements and make the best use of the new investment to fundamentally reset how the NHS is run so that our growing and ageing population can get the right care at the right time and in the right place.
“This means breaking down organisational barriers to take a more holistic approach to how care is delivered and paid for, embracing new and existing forms of technology, recruiting and retaining the right number of staff and shifting the focus away from hospitals to prevention and care in the community.”
January 9, 2019 at 3:44 pm
Here’s an idea. Let’s take the money they’ve allocated to “allowing patients to book appointments, order prescriptions and view their medical records online” – because that already happens – and allocate that to funding primary care better so that we can retain our staff, build their resilience and actually make it possible for them to keep up with all these changes whilst trying to care for their patients. The NHS gets slapped on the wrist constantly for “reinventing the wheel” and yet it’s fine for the government to be able to do it?! *facepalm*
January 10, 2019 at 3:44 pm
I agree – we are currently being ‘encouraged’ ( read badgered) to engage with the Egton online triage project.
In principle I don’t disagree with online access and in fact use it myself. However its not for everyone and is likely to impact on access for patients who don’t use it.
Over recent years we have adjusted and changed our appointment system to include a mixture of book ahead appts/open access/tel consults and home visits in a morning – this has not been done by decreasing but increasing access – our GP’s can see 20 – 26 patients in a morning through all these avenues. Our discussions about online triage and the resulting ‘skype’ appointments have been around our inability to put more pressure on GP’s. Therefore if we were to go down this route, we would need to decrease the offer elsewhere. We tend to use the afternoons for urgent on the day ( late calls/kids etc) and for the chronic disease patients who all need that additional time.
Its another example of the line from one of my favourite films ‘ build it and they will come’….. keep opening varied routes for access and patients will use them. The real issue is around how to staff these with appropriate clinicians.
I understand and agree with the view that online/IT solutions will need to increase in the future, but we need to build in the resilience as per the above post first in order that the changes can be embedded properly and this doesn’t end up in another NHS IT disaster.