It is only through working in partnership to use full the capacity of the healthcare sector – including private healthcare providers – that the NHS can properly tackle the myriad challenges it currently faces.
This is according to former health and social care minister Will Quince MP (pictured), who chaired the Westminster Health Forum’s latest event on Friday morning.
Outlining some of these challenges, Quince said the NHS faced “significant” challenges across primary and emergency care.
He added the country is also contending with people living longer with the associated complex conditions that this brings, recruitment challenges within the social care sector and increased demand on mental health services.
Further challenges, he added, have come in the form “huge” pressures on capital budgets, the Covid backlog and the resulting increased waiting lists and belated diagnosis of certain conditions due to the pandemic.
And within the service itself, Quince pointed to industrial action making dealing with NHS waiting lists more challenging, a complex way of working within the service characterised by silos and multiple tiers, as well as a cultural mistrust of the independent sector in certain quarters of the NHS.
This, he added, has been compounded by challenges to rolling out technology.
He said a drive to ensure research is a priority for every trust in the country and NHS workforce and funding issues
“The truth is addressing funding and workforce alone will not tackle the challenges that exist within our NHS, either nationally or locally,” Quince said.
“It’s only by innovating and transforming systems and working in partnership – and that means using all capacity within local health systems, and that’s the NHS, but also, very importantly, the independent sector – that we can start to address the challenges and more importantly improve the patient experience, patient outcomes and the delivery of health and care provision.
“Because we all ultimately aspire to the same thing – and that’s people across the UK living longer, happier, healthier fulfilling lives.”