How much of a difference will the ‘Plan for Patients’ unveiled by Therese Coffey really make to the NHS crisis? The health service is already operating in winter mode (which generally means not really working and under extreme pressure) and the temperatures have scarcely dropped. The Health Secretary’s opening big announcement today was what she described as ‘the first step’ in the government’s ‘journey’ of addressing the challenges facing the health service. It followed her priories of ABCDD – ambulances, backlog, care, doctors and dentists – with new measures on each.
That’s something voters won’t thank the Tories for
Some of the most significant policies included changing the pension rules which are currently making it far less attractive and financially sensible for GPs to stay in the job for as long as they (and their patients) might want. This has repeatedly been highlighted by doctors and NHS figures as being one of the many drains on the general practice workforce.
Another was the £500 million adult social care discharge fund, which will help move patients who are medically fit for discharge but nonetheless end up stuck in hospital because no suitable care package can be found. That’s significant, not least because it was another policy hiding in plain sight: during the pandemic, money was made available to get large numbers of patients out of hospitals and into social care settings, but the cash disappeared as Covid became less of a threat. However, it’s worth pointing out that Coffey went on to tell the Commons ‘that £500 million acts as the down-payment in the rebalancing of funding across health and social care as we develop our longer-term plans’. This suggests it might be coming from the NHS budget, rather than being new funding overall.
The measures to ensure that everyone who needs a GP appointment can get one within two weeks are an important retail offer: they’re tangible and something voters, who tend to see general practice as the shop window of the health service, can understand. But as Labour’s shadow health secretary Wes Streeting tartly pointed out in his response to Coffey’s statement, the two week target was a bit paltry in comparison to the 48 hour one his own party had when in government.
Coffey repeatedly referred to the need for further plans on workforce and social care. The problem she has, though, is that, for now, everything is either too small or too late to make this winter much easier for the health service. Even though what Coffey announced today is not unhelpful – and even though a government that wants to fix the NHS must do proper long-term planning on getting enough staff for the health service and properly reforming social care – that’s something voters won’t thank the Tories for. Instead, they’’ll notice a winter crisis even more than whether their GP is answering the phone.
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