The Prime Minister set out bold plans for the service in a speech earlier today, including freeing up 1 million appointments per year, expanding the use of AI in healthcare and dramatically reducing the number of patients on waiting lists.
A primary goal of the reformed NHS is to “put patients in control of their care” by shifting “treatment away from hospitals and centres” and where possible treating patients “at their GPs, in their community, in their home”.
The NHS app will also be updated to “enable patients to choose providers, book appointments in more settings and receive test results, all in one place”, helping to make the service more accessible.
To do this GPs will be funded and encouraged to work more closely with hospital doctors to get specialised advice before making referrals, Starmer claims this will lead to faster diagnoses and “avoid an extra 800,000 unnecessary referrals and appointments” each year.
He also promotes the use of community diagnostic centres (CDC) to create more convenient and faster local treatment. He said that more will be opened and they will expand operating hours to 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, which is expected to “deliver 440,000 extra tests and scans every year”.
In order to reduce funding inefficiency, AI will be used to “focus our investment on what will actually cut waiting times”, with Starmer claiming that technology like “AI-enhanced stethoscopes” are able to nearly instantly tell if a patient is “at risk of cardiac failure”.
He claims that if harnessed properly, AI has “almost unlimited power to cut waste, speed things up and save lives”.
The Prime Minister also aims to strike deals with the private sector to cut waiting times and “deliver our plan for change”.
He claims that the agreement will mean “more beds, more operations, more care” will be available to the NHS.
He acknowledges that “some people won’t like this”, but insists that “change is urgent” and that he is “not interested in putting ideology before patients”.
This plan has been met with backlash from the Green Party who suggest that the deal could lead to “backdoor privatisation”, saying that “we need clarity” on how this will be implemented in the long term.
Other reforms include changing the follow-up appointment system so that it is available upon request by the patient, rather than automatic, providing equipment and advice so that patients can monitor their long-term conditions at home, and promoting efficient care by rewarding trusts who improve their waiting times the fastest with additional funding.
