Health Secretary Promises Faster, Simpler, and Fairer NHS
In her new role as health secretary, Victoria Atkins has set out plans to make the health and social care system faster, simpler, and fairer for patients as she thanked staff for delivering on patient priorities.
Previously the Financial Secretary to the Treasury, Victoria Atkins is now responsible for the overall financial control and oversight of NHS delivery and performance, as well as oversight of social care policy.
Setting out her commitment to the NHS and praising healthcare staff, she said: “Since joining the department, I have been bowled over by the way health and social care staff just keep on delivering for patients.
“I have spent the past few weeks meeting doctors, nurses, GPs, pharmacists and other health workers and heard wonderful stories about how they have gone above and beyond to deliver outstanding care for patients and cut waiting lists.
“But I have also heard about their frustrations and where they feel they are not able to deliver the best possible care or where prevention or early intervention could have made a real difference. That is why I am committed to making health and social care services faster, simpler and fairer.
“We face a difficult winter ahead. And though our early winter planning is seeing some results we know there is much more to do. But having seen what our excellent staff can do I am confident that with the government’s support we can continue to deliver for patients over the coming months.”
Multiple pledges to improve the NHS have been made
For each of her three aims surrounding the NHS – faster, simpler, and fairer – The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care laid out various objectives.
To ensure a faster system, she promised to improve access to local services for patients, improve A&E performance, and to cut waiting lists.
A simpler experience for patients will comprise of joined up, integrated care, while staff can expect reduced bureaucracy, as well as access to the latest technology to free up their time to care for patients.
Her promise to make the UK’s healthcare system fairer will ensure that children are protected from health harms, health outcomes will not be determined by where patients live, older people will receive government support to maintain their independence for longer, and that taxpayers are treated more fairly through the government delivering a more productive NHS.
These pledges come the week after the health secretary announced funding for a research project to evaluate the rollout of the hugely successful HIV opt-out testing programme to 46 new sites across England.
A number of NHS and government milestones have been reached
The health secretary laid out her intentions in her new role the same week as a number of NHS and government milestones were hit.
According to NHS data, there were 51,245 additional nurses in September 2023 compared to 2019, achieving the government’s manifesto commitment to recruit an additional 50,000 nurses 6 months early.
Additionally, in the year to October 2023, 51 million additional general practice appointments were delivered compared to October 2019, meeting another manifesto commitment.
The government have also announced that it has put forward an offer that will modernise the consultant contract and reform consultants’ pay structure, in a move towards ending consultant strikes. The British Medical Association and Hospital Consultants and Specialists Association are expected to put the deal to their memberships in the coming weeks.
Further, pharmacies across England began offering the new contraceptive services announced recently as part of Pharmacy First. This is part of the NHS and government’s primary care recovery plan, announced by the head of the NHS and the Prime Minister in May, which committed to making it quicker and easier for millions of people to access healthcare on their high street.
