The NHS Confederation has shared its views with all the main political parties; that the next government must boost investment to repair and update crumbling NHS estates and equipment and support economic growth.
Health and care leaders want the next government to increase vital funding to repair dilapidated buildings, invest in cutting-edge technology and drive down long waiting lists as part of a series of measures to put the NHS on a sustainable footing and to build the health of the nation.
A report from the NHS Confederation, ‘Building the health of the nation: priorities for a new government’, sets out what health and care leaders want the next government to prioritise as services grapple with rising demand and a decade of underinvestment.
Based on extensive engagement across its networks, including NHS Trusts, primary care providers and integrated care systems, the NHS Confederation has identified the five most critical factors that will help to secure the future of the service in a general election year.
These are to:
• Put the NHS on a more sustainable footing, with no top-down structural reform in England for the next parliament, and to commit to a short-term stabilisation plan during the first 12 months of a new parliament to help get performance in the English NHS back on track.
• Increase NHS capital spending and reform how the capital regime operates. Specifically in England, capital funding needs to increase to at least £14.1 billion annually, a £6.4 billion increase from the current level of £7.7 billion.
• Commit to fund and deliver the NHS Long Term Workforce Plan for England, alongside an equivalent plan for social care.
• Provide more care closer to home by enabling local health systems to proportionately increase investment into primary care and community-based services, mental health and social care.
• Deliver a strategy for national health, given that most policy that impacts people’s health is made outside the NHS. As part of this, the Prime Minister should lead a cross-government national mission for health improvement to shift the focus from treating illness to promoting health and wellbeing, reducing inequalities and tackling the wider determinants of health, and supporting the public to be active partners in their own health.
Commenting on this report Matthew Taylor, Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation, says: "Yes, this is about government investment – especially in capital and workforce – but it is also about the government resisting the temptation to waste time and energy on unnecessary reorganisation, about the government working differently to improve the nation’s health and about enabling our members to deliver on the long-delayed aspiration to move resources into prevention, primary and community based care.”
With the NHS facing increasing pressure from a growing and aging population, whichever party is elected at the next election must give health and care systems the support and tools to be more productive.
