The NHS needs to rapidly address some big and long-standing challenges including GP access, waiting lists, delayed discharges, the sustainability of urgent care services, planetary health and health inequality. However, these issues will never be sustainably tackled without a credible and funded commitment to population health improvement and to the wellbeing of the workforce. Leaders must also take bold steps to transform how the NHS enables care through the use of digital technology.
We know that people living in the most deprived areas have the poorest access to GPs, are more likely to attend A+E, have higher levels of emergency admissions, wait longer for hospital treatment and experience unnecessarily longer length of stay in hospitals. Better, earlier support means better outcomes for citizens, a more sustainable use of funds and greater engagement from our valuable workforce.
We recognise that achieving transformation across all of these areas will require unprecedented engagement and co-production with the workforce and citizens at a time when there is significant change fatigue within the NHS. Activated citizens can feel the benefits of improving their own health and wellbeing and a skilled workforce that feels valued is the driving force we need to transform the NHS.
The National Association Primary Care (NAPC) is a membership organisation that leads change and innovation in primary care and we have a track record of doing this by providing, hope, joy and meaning to a workforce exhausted by covid and an intensity of service delivery that is unsustainable. We acknowledge that all of this needs to be achieved in an economically sustainable way that improves patient satisfaction and increases professional experience and retention.
We have demonstrated that we can deliver improvement in all these areas at every level of the NHS and with relatively little funding.
Joint Chief Executive Matthew Walker said “We need to see a renewed commitment to improve the health and wellbeing of the nation by genuinely supporting clinicians and citizens to take a more proactive approach. We can make a meaningful impact not in years but in weeks and months. This must be supported by organisations across primary and secondary care, working in partnership to provide services that work for communities.”
