When I was diagnosed with kidney cancer, in 2021, the NHS saved my life. I felt this Rolls-Royce machine kick into gear, as I was treated by a world-class surgeon equipped with a robot and looked after by a group of incredibly caring nurses. I saw the best of the NHS.
But I also saw how today’s NHS is letting patients down. After I was discharged from hospital, I was pretty much left to my own devices, despite not being able to get myself into bed. I had to wait for months longer than the recommended time for scans to check my cancer hadn’t returned, because of the ballooning backlog.
The most frustrating moment came when I went to hospital to get the results of my follow-up tests. On arrival, I was told the results hadn’t been processed in time, and that I should arrange another time to come back. I was lucky enough to have a boss who didn’t mind if I needed to take time off work. But for someone on a zero-hours contract, the cost of the NHS not sending test results via text, or even a message to say the results weren’t ready, could be two days’ wages.
These are the inefficiencies and inconveniences that I can’t see from behind my desk at the Department of Health and Social Care, but that patients see every day. And so we are calling on them to offer insights and ideas for turning our NHS around.
Lord Ara Darzi’s investigation into NHS England found that the service was broken. A toxic cocktail of 14 years of underinvestment, a top-down reorganisation and failure to modernise has left the health service going through the worst crisis in its history.
Darzi has given the diagnosis, now it falls to us to write the prescription through our 10-year plan. It will require the biggest reimagining of the health service since its birth. The plan will set out how we transform the NHS into a “neighbourhood health service”, powered by cutting-edge technology, that helps us stay healthy and out of hospital.
But government can’t do this alone. Today, in England, we are launching the biggest national conversation about the NHS since its birth. We will be holding events across the country, including citizens’ assemblies, asking the public what needs to change and putting patients in the driving seat of NHS reform.
This will also be the biggest staff engagement exercise in history. When I visited Singapore general hospital last year, they told me about a programme, called Get Rid of Stupid Stuff, that I think the NHS could do with. It does what it says on the tin. By just giving hospital staff some agency over their working lives, their morale and patient care improved. Over the coming months, we will be inviting NHS staff to tell us about the stupid stuff that’s holding them back from doing what they’re best at, and their ideas for turning the NHS around.
I know how hard it must be to battle against a broken system to give patients the best care you can, only to go home at the end of the day knowing your best couldn’t be good enough. But there is light at the end of the tunnel. The cavalry is coming, and together we can turn this around. My message to NHS staff is: stay and help us change it.
The challenges the NHS faces today are huge, but the opportunities are enormous. The revolution taking place today in science and technology will transform the way we receive healthcare. Nye Bevan would have had no idea in 1948, but the model he created makes the NHS the best-placed healthcare system in the world to take advantage of rapid advances in data, genomics, and predictive and preventive medicine.
It allows us to introduce patient passports, so that whether you’re seeing a GP or a hospital surgeon, they have your full medical history. We will be able to judge a child’s risk of disease from birth, so we can take steps to prevent it striking. It will mean the NHS can work hand in hand with the life-sciences sector, offering access to our large and diverse set of data.
The conversation we’re kicking off today will include questions such as how to ensure patients’ data is protected and anonymised – people are up for helping save the NHS, but understandably have concerns about Big Brother. We will also work through how to get the best possible deal for the NHS in return, whether that’s extra funding, cut-price deals for the latest medicines or priority access, so that cutting-edge treatments are available to NHS patients, not just those who can afford to pay.
We all owe the NHS a debt of gratitude for a moment in our lives when it was there for us or a family member. Now we have the chance to repay our debt.
Wes Streeting is secretary of state for health and social care
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• This article was amended on 21 October 2024 to clarify that the NHS engagement project referred to is in England only.
