New Health Secretary, Wes Streeting, has ordered an independent investigation of NHS performance in England.
Broken NHS
Mr Streeting said that the NHS is broken, and he wanted the investigation to tell the “hard truths” about the service and help to inform his 10-year plan for the NHS.
He believes that it is possible to turn the NHS around, but that it was first important to diagnose the problem.
He said:
“It’s clear to anyone who works in or uses the NHS that it is broken. Patients are waiting more than a year for an operation. They can’t get through the front door for a GP appointment. And when they can an ambulance, they don’t know if or when one will arrive.”
Backlogs and extensive wait times
It is more than eight years since any of the key waiting times targets for A&E, hospital waiting times, or cancer care have been hit in England.
The call from Mr Streeting comes as the latest waiting time figures for the NHS show that the backlog for hospital care has gone up for the second month in a row, now hitting 7.6 million.
One in four patients waited longer than four hours in A&E in June, while a third of cancer patients did not start treatment within 62 days of referral.
Independent investigation
For this review, the Health Secretary has asked Lord Ara Darzi, who is an NHS surgeon and independent peer, to lead the investigation.
He will need to report back by September.
Chief Executive of NHS England, Amanda Pritchard, welcomed the news of the investigation and said:
“Frontline NHS staff are doing an incredible job despite the huge pressures, but we know that they face huge struggles and patients are not always getting the timely, high-quality care they need. We will work closely with the government, independent experts and NHS staff to take a detailed look at the scale of the challenges and set out plans to address them – this comprehensive analysis will be an important step in helping us to build an NHS fit for the future.”
Comment
The new Government certainly needs to be taking urgent action in relation to the NHS and form a clear and coherent plan as to how improvements can be made under their leadership.
Stories of backlogs, long wait times, failures in care, and struggling services seem very much to be the norm at the moment and behind it all are innocent patients who deserve to receive better treatment and care.
There is a significant risk of catastrophic consequences for patients if improvements are not seen across the board.
It is therefore a step in the right direction to see that this investigation has been called.
For now, it is a case of watching this space and waiting for the outcome of the investigation.
The results will be very interesting but more importantly, the response that will need to follow and the subsequent fight to improve the NHS will be vital.
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