NHS Long term Plan

NHS Long term Plan

15th January 2019

The NHS has written a Long Term Plan so it can be fit for the future and is based on the experiences of patients and staff. Published on 7 January 2019, the NHS Long Term Plan was developed in partnership with frontline health and care staff, patients and their families and other experts.

Here’s a summary of some of what the NHS Long Term Plan will deliver for patients:

Making sure everyone gets the best start in life

  • reducing stillbirths and mother and child deaths during birth by 50%
  • ensuring most women can benefit from continuity of carer through and beyond their pregnancy, targeted towards those who will benefit most
  • providing extra support for expectant mothers at risk of premature birth
  • expanding support for perinatal mental health conditions
  • taking further action on childhood obesity
  • increasing funding for children and young people’s mental health
  • bringing down waiting times for autism assessments
  • providing the right care for children with a learning disability
  • delivering the best treatments available for children with cancer, including CAR-T and proton beam therapy.

 

Delivering world-class care for major health problems

  • preventing 150,000 heart attacks, strokes and dementia cases
  • providing education and exercise programmes to tens of thousands more patients with heart problems, preventing up to 14,000 premature deaths
  • saving 55,000 more lives a year by diagnosing more cancers early
  • investing in spotting and treating lung conditions early to prevent 80,000 stays in hospital
  • spending at least £2.3bn more a year on mental health care
  • helping 380,000 more people get therapy for depression and anxiety by 2023/24
  • delivering community-based physical and mental care for 370,000 people with severe mental illness a year by 2023/24.

 

Supporting people to age well

  • increasing funding for primary and community care by at least £4.5bn
  • bringing together different professionals to coordinate care better
  • helping more people to live independently at home for longer
  • developing more rapid community response teams to prevent unnecessary hospital spells and speed up discharges home.
  • upgrading NHS staff support to people living in care homes.
  • improving the recognition of carers and support they receive
  • making further progress on care for people with dementia
  • giving more people more say about the care they receive and where they receive it, particularly towards the end of their lives.

 

They will deliver the ambitions of the NHS Long Term Plan by:

Doing things differently – give people more control over their own health and the care they receive, encourage more collaboration between GPs, their teams and community services, as ‘primary care networks’, to increase the services they can provide jointly, and increase the focus on NHS organisations working with their local partners, as ‘Integrated Care Systems’, to plan and deliver services which meet the needs of their communities.

Preventing illness and tackling health inequalities – the NHS will increase its contribution to tackling some of the most significant causes of ill health, including new action to help people stop smoking, overcome drinking problems and avoid Type 2 diabetes, with a particular focus on the communities and groups of people most affected by these problems.

Backing the NHS workforce – continue to increase the NHS workforce, training and recruiting more professionals – including thousands more clinical placements for undergraduate nurses, hundreds more medical school places, and more routes into the NHS such as apprenticeships. Also making the NHS a better place to work, so more staff stay in the NHS and feel able to make better use of their skills and experience for patients.

Making better use of data and digital technology – providing more convenient access to services and health information for patients, with the new NHS App as a digital ‘front door’, better access to digital tools and patient records for staff, and improvements to the planning and delivery of services based on the analysis of patient and population data.

Getting the most out of taxpayers’ investment in the NHS – continue working with doctors and other health professionals to identify ways to reduce duplication in how clinical services are delivered, make better use of the NHS’ combined buying power to get commonly used products for cheaper, and reduce spend on administration

The full report can be found on the NHS Website