Health Secretary Wes Streeting outlined his plans to address NHS challenges, emphasizing patient choice in hospital referrals and the use of smartwatches to reduce unnecessary appointments. Streeting acknowledged the 'tough' nature of the reforms but expressed confidence in achieving a 18-week average waiting time by the end of the parliament. Key initiatives include expanding patient choice for hospital referrals, embracing digital technologies, and shifting focus towards preventive healthcare.
The Health Secretary's plans include giving patients a choice of five hospitals for referrals and smartwatches to cut down on unnecessary appointments
The Government announced its 10-year plan to fix the NHS in the autumn. Streeting claimed it would involve three major shifts over the next three years: “hospital to community, analogue to digital, and sickness to prevention.”Patients given choice of five hospitals for referrals “Patients feel powerless. They lack control… Public services need to adapt to meet the expectations of a modern world,” he told
The app will also allow users to receive test results, contact providers, and access real-time updates on waiting times. “The Government’s plan for improvements in elective care to be driven by arbitrary targets and upgrades to an app, misses the crucial point: we need to treat the patients most in need first, rather than return to the wasteful obsession with artificial, non-clinically relevant targets,” he said.
By making their opening hours longer, the Government hopes people will be treated more quickly and conveniently in their neighbourhoods rather than having to rely on hospitals. She added that “deliverability” hinges on Government decisions at future spending reviews, and said there will be “difficult decisions about where the health service focuses its finite resources”.
The information will be accessible via the NHS app and will make it easier for GPs, hospitals and ambulance services to access the information of people who visit them. Questions were also raised after Streeting said last year the NHS would soon work “hand in hand with the life sciences sector, offering access to our large and diverse set of data”.in October that steps were being taken to ensure data is “protected and anonymised”, adding: “People are up for helping save the NHS, but understandably have concerns about ‘big brother’”.
The expanded use of smartwatches was first announced last year, and the Health Secretary said then that he wanted the NHS to use “cutting-edge technology that helps us stay healthy and out of hospital.”
NHS Health Reform Patient Choice Digital Healthcare Waiting Times
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