New Health and Social Care secretary targets workforce, technology and prevention

MP Matt Hancock has announced that the government is investing over £400 million in new technology in hospitals and £75 million in Trusts to help them install modern electronic systems “which save money, give clinicians more time to spend on patients and reduce potentially deadly medication errors by up to 50% when compared to the old paper systems.”
With regard to the workforce, Hancock said training for pharmacists and nurses will be planned and funded to assist with GP’s “substantial workloads”, and “so that everyone can reach their full potential”. More help to progress to from nurse to advanced nurse practitioner will provide “more comprehensive care for patients while freeing up doctors to carry out more of the tasks they trained to do”.
With regard to technology, Hancock said: “Not only can the right use of technology save time and money, it can improve patient safety. I want to see technology that releases funding to save lives elsewhere – on cancer survival rates for example – where we still lag behind the best in the world.”
With regard to prevention, Hancock said: “With an ageing society and 10 million more people projected to be living with a long-term condition by 2030, it is more imperative than ever that we look to make a radical shift in our approach – focusing on preventative, joined-up care that’s centred around individuals. Keeping people healthy and treating their problems quickly, empowering people with tools to manage their own physical and mental health needs closer to home, and delivering care in the right place will be key to boosting population health.”
Niall Dickson, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said: “The priorities outlined by the new Secretary of State are very encouraging and will strike a positive chord with our members who have long argued that workforce, technology and transformation to develop services in the community are central. Next we need to see the detail. It is imperative clinical staff and the public are involved in shaping any long-term plan – but crucially this must be a health and care plan, not an NHS plan. In March the Prime Minister promised to correct the mistakes of previous Governments by putting an end to ‘siloed’ working and integrating health and social care so that demands on the NHS are better managed. This work must begin now, not later, otherwise we risk slipping back into the age-old habit of fighting NHS fires rather than planning for the long-term.”
Chair of the Royal College of GPs, Professor Helen Stokes-Lampard, said: “The new Secretary of State seems to have recognised the need to invest in primary care and the prevention of disease, and also has recognised the importance of increasing the availability of social prescribing opportunities to complement the evidence-based treatments we offer for physical and psychological distress in our patients. But while there is reference to GP workload, we would have liked more explicit emphasis on Mr Hancock’s plans for increasing the number of ‘real’ GPs providing frontline care to patients.”