We were across the national news this week as our Chief Executive Matthew Trainer and Deputy Chief Executive Fiona Wheeler spoke to the BBC and ITV about their optimism for the future of the NHS.

It came on the day Lord Ara Darzi's report was published. The surgeon, former health minister and independent peer, was appointed by the government to undertake an independent investigation into the state of the NHS.

While Lord Darzi described the NHS as being in a ‘critical condition’ and acknowledged it would take time to fix, he noted how the NHS has turned things around before and is confident we will again.

He also praised staff for their ‘shared passion and determination to make the NHS better for our patients’.

Matthew featured on the BBC Newscast podcast (pictured in the studio above, second right) on Thursday 12 September, alongside Professor Kamila Hawthorne, Chair of the Royal Council of GPs.

He said:

We can’t keep doing everything we’re doing and move lots of money into primary care and mental health services without some tough choices. The next challenge for the Secretary of State and the government and for the NHS and people like me is, how do we make those choices and start to make that investment that this report says we really need?

I am optimistic we can do a better job because we’ve got great folk. We need the NHS, and we need it to get better.

On the same day, ITV News came to our Elective Surgical Hub to speak to Fiona (pictured above) and Thangadorai Amalesh (below), our Director of Surgery, about the work we do there and how it helps to reduce our waiting lists, highlighting it as an example of good practice.

Fiona said:

I think anybody who works in the health service now will feel the burden of responsibility of caring for huge amounts of patients. There is huge motivation in changing things for the better and making things work better and feel better for patients.

Key findings of the report, which will inform the government’s 10-year plan to reform the health service 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 have been being poured into hospitals where productivity had substantially fallen, while too little has been spent in the community.

Wes Streeting, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and MP for Ilford North, has outlined three “big shifts” to address the issues:

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