Message from Richard Beeken: Independent investigation of the issues facing the NHS

September 13, 2024

Message from Richard Beeken, Chief Executive:

In July, the new Government appointed Lord Ara Darzi, a surgeon, former health minister and independent peer, to undertake an independent investigation of the issues facing the NHS.

Yesterday (Thursday 12 September), the report was published. The report was to inform the government’s 10-year plan to reform the health service. The report by Lord Darzi offered a comprehensive analysis of the problems confronting the healthcare system and the present state of the NHS in England.

Many of us will not be surprised by the outcomes in the report, in which the NHS has been described as being in a ‘critical condition’. Indeed, Lord Darzi says the problems could take up to eight years to fix.

Key findings from Lord Darzi’s 142-page report include:

Deterioration: The health of the nation has deteriorated over the past 15 years, with a substantial increase in the number of people living with multiple long-term conditions
Spending: Too great a share of the NHS budget is being spent in hospitals, too little in the community, and productivity is too low
Waiting times: Waiting lists have swelled and waiting times have surged, with A&E queues more than doubling from an average of just under 40 people on a typical evening in April 2009 to over 100 in April 2024. 1 in 10 patients are now waiting for 12 hours or more
Cancer care: The UK has appreciably higher cancer mortality rates than other countries, with no progress whatsoever made in diagnosing cancer at stage one and two between 2013 and 2021
Lasting damage: The Health and Social Care Act of 2012 did lasting damage to the management capacity and capability of the NHS. It took 10 years to return to a sensible structure, and the effects continue to be felt to this day
Productivity: Too many resources are being poured into hospitals where productivity has substantially fallen, while too little has been spent in the community.

What next?

The important thing now is about how we move forward to keep doing all the things we do well and towards the NHS we aspire to be on behalf of the patients and population we serve.

The findings of this report will inform a 10-year plan for the NHS. Wes Streeting, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, has outlined three “big paradigm shifts“, in the way the NHS operates to ensure its long-term sustainability

From hospital to community care
From analogue to digital
From treating sickness to preventing it.

Within our Trust Strategy we have already anticipated a lot of this and I would like to share some examples with you.

Hospital to community – we are the only Trust in the Black Country and Birmingham and Solihull whose admissions to hospital of the over 65’s and from falls or care homes, is going down.

We have the lowest Length of Stay (LOS), post being declared medically “fit” (NCTR) in the Black Country and our community services investment in things like Urgent Community Response and Virtual Wards , is bearing fruit – it has enabled us to reduce our reliance on acute beds and prove to ourselves that we can fit into our new hospital, MMUH.

From analogue to digital – we have a SMART-enabled hospital and are at the forefront of the machine learning/AI revolution in Radiology.

Treating sickness to preventing it – as a Trust we lead the Place partnerships in Sandwell and West Birmingham and these are set up to work with primary care and public health not just on the better management of chronic disease but also on preventing it, wherever we can.

As a Trust we can be assured by these examples and will work hard to ensure we stay ahead of the game.

We know there is still a long way to go. We will continue to work with all our staff, alongside our health and care partners, to ensure our services meet the needs of local people.

We will update you on the report and what it means for our organisations over the coming days and weeks.

Regards

Richard