The Prime Minister’s Office has shared details of the Elective Reform Plan, “a whole system approach to hitting the 18-week referral to treatment target” focusing on expanded use of CDCs and surgical hubs, along with the NHS app, remote monitoring, and technologies such as AI.
Opening CDCs for longer and bringing 17 new and expanded surgical hubs online is hoped to create “up to half a million more appointments” per year, whilst increasing the availability of same-day testing and consultations aims to reduce the incidence of patients waiting “weeks in between different stages of care”.
The range of tests available at CDCs is also planned to increase, said to enable GPs to “direct patients straight to diagnostic testing”. 14 new surgical hubs are expected to be created within existing hospitals by June, along with expansions to three existing hubs, bringing together “expertise, best practice and tech under one roof to focus on delivering the most common, less complex procedures”.
Other measures in the plan include using the NHS app to offer patients “greater choice and control” over their treatment by ensuring better access to information, details of appointments, results, and appointment booking facilities. It also shares intentions to support healthcare providers to utilise new technology and AI to “tackle inefficiencies holding up appointments”, such as by drawing on AI predictions about which appointments are most likely to be missed, and using remote monitoring technology and wearable tech “more widely” to collect health data without patients needing to see a healthcare professional face-to-face.
Trusts who “make the fastest improvements in cutting waiting times” will be granted additional funding for capital projects which “could include investment in cutting edge AI diagnostic equipment or hospital ward maintenance”, according to the update, which also shares how these reforms are “fundamental and necessary” in addressing the challenges facing the NHS outlined in Lord Darzi’s report. To read the PM’s update in full, please click here.
Focus on the Darzi report and a digital focus to drive change
HTN covered the publication of Lord Darzi’s report back in September, focusing specifically on its implications for the use of tech and data within the health sector, and Darzi’s observations that the NHS “continues to struggle to fully realise the benefits of information technology” and “always seems to add to the workload of clinicians rather than releasing more time to care”. Over the past 15 years, whilst other sectors have been “radically reshaped” by digital technologies, Lord Darzi stated that the NHS is “in the foothills of digital transformation” and highlighted the last decade in particular as a missed opportunity to prepare the NHS for the future by embracing technology and its ability to support a pivot from a “diagnose and treat” model to one focused on prediction and prevention.
In a speech at the Labour Party Conference 2024, Wes Streeting called for a tech- and data-driven reform of the NHS, citing “grim” results from the Darzi report and “a decade of underinvestment”, pledging to tackle long waiting lists and create “a digital healthcare service powered by cutting-edge technology”. Advances in data and genomics, Streeting said, will lead to healthcare which is more predictive, more preventative, and “more personalised than ever before”, enabled by a universal health service that is “able to share data, partner with innovators, and adopt new technologies at scale”.
HTN also sought comments and reactions from a range of stakeholders from across the health and technology sector. We asked for thoughts on the report’s findings and the “missed opportunities” Lord Darzi highlighted from analysis of the past ten years, looking ahead to the ways technology can help secure the future of the NHS. Comments focused on the need to embrace the emergence of new technologies, as well as the role of data in delivering benefits for the NHS, and outlined some of the challenges for innovators in the health sector.
And a November HTN Now panel discussion built on this, with expert panellists unpicking the main findings and takeaways from the report and exploring ways of bringing its recommendations to life.
