Last Updated on July 31, 2018
At his first major speech since being appointed, Health and Social Care Secretary, Mr Hancock has set out his early priorities for health and social care.
Speaking from West Suffolk hospital, the Secretary of State made it clear that he sees the need for a long-term plan for health and social care, saying, ‘We must find a way to make health and care – by which I mean the whole health and social care system – sustainable for the long term.’
He highlighted three areas where he wants to make ‘swift and decisive progress’: workforce, technology and prevention.
Workforce
Mr Hancock acknowledged the necessity of training across the sector. He said, ‘I want to ensure training is organised and funded so that everyone can reach their full potential…I want more people working in social care to feel able and supported to grow and develop their careers and step up into those senior roles that are crucial to providing leadership and determining the quality of care received by our loved ones.’
He has also promised to launch a consultation on workforce issues and to set up a panel of advisers from the NHS and social care workforce.
Technology
The Secretary of State went on to speak about his second priority: technology. He said, ‘Only in health and care has new technology always seemed to lead to inexorably higher costs. In every other area of life, innovation reduces waste and drives costs down not up. We’ve got to make that happen in health and care too… I want to work with everyone across the NHS and social care system to embrace the next generation of technology.’
Mr Hancock spoke about an initiative with Amazon to enable the NHS Choices health information to be tailored for voice activated devices. This aims to support people to engage in managing their own care, including those with visual impairments.
Prevention
The Health and Social Care Secretary’s third priority was prevention, focusing on:
- Keeping people healthy and treating their problems quickly.
- Giving people the tools they need to manage their own physical and mental health needs closer to home.
- Delivering care in the right place in settings that suit people and their needs.
He said, ‘The integration of the NHS and social care and wider services in local government is vital to getting this right.’
Commenting on the speech, George McNamara, Director of Policy and Public Affairs at Independent Age said, ‘The Secretary of State is right to focus on prevention, workforce and technology. These are absolutely vital to ensure the sustainability of the NHS and address the crisis in social care. Timidity will do very little to address the major health and care challenges we face as a country. These priorities need to be matched with bold and radical action.
‘One of the first tests will be the forthcoming social care green paper and seeing an explicit focus on prevention matched by sufficient resources is the potential to enable older people to live in their own homes longer and reduce pressures on an already stretched NHS. Immediate action is also necessary to reduce the growing waiting times and increasing challenges older people face accessing the NHS.’