IHPN responds to the Government's 10 Year Health Plan

Responding to the Government’s 10 Year Health Plan, David Hare, Chief Executive of the Independent Healthcare Providers Network (IHPN), said:

“Commissioned by the government after taking office, last September’s Independent Investigation of the NHS in England by Lord Darzi made clear that the NHS is in ‘serious trouble’. The report laid out a series of challenges facing the health service including chronically long waits for care, higher cancer mortality rates than many other countries, poor levels of productivity, a failure to provide patients with real choice and a major deterioration in the health of the population.

“Today’s publication of the government’s 10 Year Health Plan is therefore a critically important moment in turning around the NHS so that the patients who receive care and the staff that deliver it can once again believe that it will deliver the standard of service that the public want and need.

“While the journey will be long there is much to welcome in today’s Plan.

“The clear recognition that improving the health of the nation is not for the public sector alone to do is absolutely correct. Diversity of healthcare supply and sharing the burden between the public, private and voluntary sectors is the right way forward and provides hope that the mindset of an NHS as monopoly provider of care can be consigned to history.

“Also important is a recognition that rules and incentives matter. Recent years have seen a series of changes which have made it all too easy for parts of the NHS to persist with poorly performing providers despite others being willing to turn that service around. Similarly patient choice has withered on the vine, with the number of patients that recall actually being offered a choice of provider dropping to less than 1 in 4, despite choice being their legal right.

“Commitments therefore to move back to that way of working – as happened in the 2000’s when satisfaction with the NHS was at record levels – are to be welcomed.

“None of this will be easy to deliver and there will be challenges along the way. The government must be resolute in ensuring that the guiding principle is patient and not producer. But if they can do that then there are signs from today’s Plan that brighter days for the health of the nation lie ahead.”