Chris Whitehouse, a political consultant and expert on medical technology policy and regulation at Whitehouse Communications, an advisor to medtech suppliers, chair of the Urology Trade Association, and governor of the Anscombe Bioethics Centre, looks at the prognosis and treatment for the “broken” NHS.
In his first day at his new job as Health and Social Care Secretary, Wes Streeting MP announced that it is now his official policy that the NHS is “broken”, and has now appointed the team of advisors that will be tasked with coming up with a detailed diagnosis, prognosis and treatment plan to put things right.
Streeting has appointed prominent surgeon and long-time Labour health policy advisor Professor Ara Darzi, to undertake an urgent investigation into the issues and challenges faced by the NHS which is widely failing to meet targets, with soaring waiting lists and long delays in accessing care, leading to poor outcomes for patients. The “raw and honest” review is expected to report before the end of September – rocket speed in the public sector – and its finding will then inform the drawing-up of a 10 Year Plan for the NHS and social care.
The team tasked with writing the new 10 Year Plan will be led by Prof Paul Corrigan, a former health advisor to Tony Blair’s government, and Sally Warren, previously Policy Director at health think-tank, The Kings Fund. The Plan will be the road-map for the future reorganisation and resourcing of the NHS in England, and Streeting wants it finalised by January so that it can inform the coming financial review and be rolled out as rapidly as possible.
The importance of medtech, including AI, digital, medical devices and pharmaceuticals is not overlooked. Internal restructuring will see the Office of Life Sciences reporting in future to DHSC’s Director General, Secondary Care and Integration, Matthew Style, as does the MedTech Directorate, which should be an improvement in delivering on objectives, given also the appointment to the House of Lords, and as Minister for Science at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, of Sir, now Lord Patrick Vallance, the Government’s former Chief Scientist.
The final ministerial appointments have now been completed, leaving the full team at the Department of Health and Social Care as:
Secretary of State: Wes Streeting MP
Ministers of State: Stephen Kinnock MP, Karin Smyth MP
Under Secretaries: Baroness Merron, Andrew Gwynne MP
And the momentum for change continues with the announcement that the DHSC is now a “growth department” as Streeting has committed to supporting the government’s growth mission by “improving the health of the nation, getting people back to work and boosting the economy through the life sciences sector”.
Speaking at an event for the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, Streeting said he has asked the Department of Health and Social Care to expand its focus on boosting economic growth, after the Chancellor of the Exchequer set out the Government’s mission to fix the economy.
In more detailed medtech developments, the new methodology for assessing value in procurement, taking fully into account patient outcomes and whole system costs, is back on track with the new version expected imminently to be scrutinised by a new working group that will report back promptly to the Steering Committee overseeing the project at Central Commercial Function of NHS England.
The formal response to the recent consultation on Part IX of the Drug Tariff, the statutory home for medical devices prescribable by the NHS, is expected soon now that ministers are in place. Digital health app developers are waiting to see if they might be included in Part IX in the future to provide regulatory consistency, whilst other medical device suppliers are waiting to see the details of any new approach to assess the implications for patient outcomes, clinical freedom to provide the most appropriate device, the economic health of the sector, and whole system costs for the NHS and social care.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence [NICE] continues its consultation, in tandem with NHS England, on the development of a new integrated pathway for the assessment and uptake of medical devices, but in a move causing concern both to the urology sector and to suppliers of absorbent continence products, it has dropped “continence wearables” from its plans for a late stage assessment and, instead, included “intermittent catheters”.
Never mind what Labour hopes to achieve in its first one hundred days in office, its first week has been pretty impressive on health policy!
Comments upon or questions about this article can be addressed to chris.whitehouse@whitehousecomms.com
