Welcoming the findings of the biggest drop in dissatisfaction in the NHS since 1998, (reported in the British Social Attitudes Survey conducted by the King’s Fund and Nuffield Trust), Wes Streeting, Health and Social Care Secretary has announced an NHS Intensive Recovery programme to support the worst performing Trusts in England.
The 5.6 percentage point increase in satisfaction in the NHS is the first increase since the Covid-19 pandemic, a result which reflects significant effort by NHS leaders and staff to accelerate improvement. However, the government says that some “challenged” Trusts have continued to struggle, often because of a range of persistent and historic issues that have never been properly addressed.
Promising to deliver an approach to improvement that factors in the particular challenges faced by Trusts placed in the programme, Wes Streeting, speaking at the University of East London today (Wednesday, March 25) says: “The NHS is on the road to recovery, but there’s a lot of road ahead. My foot is pressing down on the accelerator and I won’t stop until the job is done.
“This programme marks a clear shift in approach – moving away from a one size fits all approach. This new approach will bring decisive action to fix long-standing issues that cannot be resolved by organisations alone.
“The Trusts identified are not failing through lack of effort, leadership or the hard work of their staff. They face deep-rooted challenges – including structural constraints and financial imbalance.”
The road to recovery
Wes Streeting is promising that each organisation will receive a tailored improvement approach, designed jointly with local leadership and focused on delivery.
This will include:
• Changes of leadership where necessary at struggling Trusts
• Bringing NHS veterans with a history of success into underperforming areas
• Merging or separating Trusts so resources can be reallocated based on need
• Improving access to capital for crumbling estates.
He adds: “Right now, a cluster of high-performing Trusts are masking some chronic under-performance in other parts of the country. Failure has been tolerated for too long. Staff know it. Patients feel it. And I won’t stand for it.
“We won’t have succeeded in changing the NHS, until we change it for the patients who are suffering the worst services in the country.
“In some places, so many years of poor service without improvement is feeding that sense of fatalism. They believe that after so long, it just can’t get better – in fact, they’ve never seen it get better.
“That’s why I’ve announced today a new Intensive Recovery programme. This will target the worst performing providers, sending in our best leaders or delivering the structural changes necessary to get them back on track. No more turning a blind eye to failure.”
The NHS Intensive Recovery programme will begin in April and has identified providers where structural challenges exist, with the longest waits for care, persistent financial problems and high leadership churn. The first wave of Trusts facing measures will include: North Cumbria Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust, Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust, Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust, Northern Lincolnshire and Goole NHS Foundation Trust and East Kent Hospitals NHS Trust.
