Government Publishes Its 10-year Health Plan For England: Fit For The Future

On 3 July, the Department of Health and Social Care published its long-awaited 10-year Health Plan for England: 10 Year Health Plan. It announced an extra £29 billion investment to fund reforms.

The review centres around 3 “radical shifts”:

The report

The report announces, “a new transparency of quality of care”. It acknowledges recent hospital scandals, in particular the inquiry into care at Stafford Hospital, and accepts that “tragically this was not an isolated incident”. It refers to the ongoing review into maternity services in Nottingham, and the mental health failings in Nottingham that led to the tragic killings of 3 people.

It accepts that the failures underpinning all of these events come from “incompetent leadership, toxic culture…failure to learn from mistakes”. The Government commits to bringing in a new era of transparency with a focus on high-quality care for all. They describe high-quality care as:

A national and independent investigation into maternity and neonatal services is announced with a National Maternity and Neonatal Taskforce to drive improvements and ensure accountability.

The report also looks at the current NHS complaint procedure and accepts that it is confusing and “far from ideal”.  It highlights poor communication and that “the NHS doesn’t listen well enough”. The Government is developing an AI tool to collect complaint data. They commit to significantly improving the complaints process.

Comment

Our clinical negligence team deals with the fall out from NHS problems on a daily basis. We see patients who die or suffer avoidable harm as a result of the pressures within the health service. Many of our lawyers have been practising in this area for over 20 years and feel that the situation for patients is as bad as it has ever been.

We hear heartbreaking stories every day, for example, of families who have lost loved ones whilst they were waiting for treatment in A&E, patients who have suffered brain or spinal injuries due to failures in care, and patients who have taken their own lives in mental health facilities.

We are acting for many families whose babies have died, or suffered serious neurological injuries due to the maternity failings in Nottingham. Lives were lost and families were devastated by failings that should not have occurred.

We welcome the plan and the commitment of the Government to improve the Health Service. We hope that the plan will provide a safe and efficient health service and prevent some of the devastating consequences we deal with.