“My job as Health Secretary is to take the best of the NHS to the rest of the NHS,” Wes Streeting said during a visit to Frimley Health NHS FT’s Heatherwood Hospital in Ascot on Friday, exactly two weeks after being confirmed as the new Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.
Mr Streeting underlined his mission to cut NHS waiting lists to staff and patients and toured the hospital to see first-hand how its work is helping patients get quicker access to planned surgery, cutting local waiting lists.
Heatherwood Hospital exclusively performs planned surgery, diagnostics and outpatients’ services mainly focusing on high volume, low complexity surgery such as orthopaedics, ophthalmology, gynaecology and urology. The hub also performs surgery for cancer and plans to expand the specialties performed in its theatres.
It is set up to ensure patients have shorter waits for surgery, are more likely to be able to go home on the same day and have a better patient experience – a model the Health Secretary wants to see emulated across the country.
Caroline Hutton, Chief Executive (interim) for Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust which runs Heatherwood Hospital says: “We are very proud of what we have been able to achieve for our patients through new ways of working and innovation using, for example, AI, digital patient records and collaboration with health and care partners to provide better care more efficiently.
“We were delighted to have the chance to share with the new Secretary of State how our dedicated planned care hospital is enabling us to reduce waiting lists, including maintaining planned surgery and procedures during winter challenges and how we are sharing our learning throughout the NHS as a Getting it Right First Time (GIRFT) surgical elective hub.”
Wes Streeting repeated his message that “the NHS is broken,” but added: “Services like those I’ve seen today at Heatherwood Hospital show that there are still great things happening in the health service. My job as Health Secretary is to take the best of the NHS to the rest of the NHS. I’m talking to patients, frontline staff and NHS leaders about what needs to change.
“We are determined to turn around the NHS so it can be there for all of us when we need it, once again.”
The Health and Social Care Secretary also hosted a town hall meeting with health representatives from across the region to discuss the issues facing services. It comes after he ordered an independent investigation into the NHS last week, pledging to be honest about the state of the health service and serious about fixing it.
