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The Health and Social Care Secretary recently (20 July 2018) spoke to hospital staff about his priorities: the workforce, technology and prevention.

Everyone has an affection for their local NHS hospital.

So it’s wonderful to be here at my local hospital: the West Suffolk.

I’m so proud of what you do and how in these challenging times you have become one of the best hospitals in the country, so congratulations. You are not just rated outstanding but the best comparable trust in the country to work at, or receive care from, in the latest national NHS staff survey.

Just like in thousands of other health and social care organisations across the country it is places like the West Suffolk where the real value of the NHS, and indeed the social care system, is felt by us all.

Paramedics, doctors, nurses, community health staff, managers, IT workers and support staff all working together to provide the best care possible.

And your commitment is mirrored by the district nurses, care home staff and informal carers who work tirelessly to provide dignified and professional care within this community.

Now, after just 2 short weeks as your Health and Social Care Secretary I want to thank you for giving me your insights on the issues you face and your views on what we can do together.

And I promise you, I will keep listening to and learning from the 3.1 million people who dedicate their working lives to caring for the health of others.

I pay tribute to your service.

NHS values

I believe the NHS is one of our nation’s greatest achievements.

Its founding doctrine of providing universal healthcare free at the point of delivery – regardless of your background or income – is a mark of our civilisation and has been a shining example to countries across the world.

It was Mahatma Ghandi who said: “A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats its weakest members.” By these standards, the NHS has helped make Britain great for the last 70 years.

I love the NHS.

Not just because some of my family work within it.

My grandmother worked in the NHS as a nurse from its inception, just as other members of my family work in it today.

But like so many other families in the country the NHS has been there for my family.

I have always valued the NHS.

But this was brought home to me last year, when the NHS was there for us at one of our toughest moments as a family.

Last summer my sister sustained a severe head injury.

It was touch and go, and her life was saved by the intensive care unit at Bristol Southmead hospital - where she stayed for a week – most of it in a coma.

Thanks to their care she is now recovered. And I want to say a deep and heartfelt thank you to the brilliant team at Southmead for all that they did.

I love my sister. And the NHS saved her life. So when I say I love the NHS I mean it.

My commitment to the health service and the fundamental principles that underpin it is not just professional – it is deeply personal.

As your Health and Social Care Secretary - supported by my brilliant ministerial team - I will be guided by these principles in everything that I do, working together to guarantee the NHS’s future.

Long-term plan

We meet at an important moment for the future of health service.

We all know, and I fully acknowledge, that since 2010 budgets have been tight. Unlike most other public services we have managed to increase real terms spend on the NHS in each and every year.

And that money, coupled with your incredible work under unrelenting pressure and increasing demand has delivered extraordinary increases in services.

We’ve seen half a million more patients treated within 18 weeks of referral compared to five years ago.

Independent experts rated the NHS as the best and safest health system in the world for the second time running last year.

And thousands more people are alive today due to improved cancer survival rates.

But as you know first-hand, the pressures have ramped up year on year.

As a society more people are living longer and with more complex conditions. This is in part down to the success of the NHS, and we must always remember that people living longer is one of its main goals but this also brings its problems.

And we’ve seen the emergence of new issues – like growing childhood obesity, antimicrobial resistance and the impact that modern living is having on our mental health.

Put together these are huge challenges to the workload of our NHS and, more importantly, the dedicated staff that work within it.

And of course social care budgets have been under even more intense pressure.

With demands rising, 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.

Part of the answer lies in increased taxpayer funding, underpinned by a strong economy generating those tax revenues.

With the economy growing strongly, last month the Prime Minister was able to propose that NHS funding will grow on average by 3.4% in real terms each year over the next 5 years.

This allows us to make the NHS funding sustainable over the medium term, with the NHS England budget set to increase by £20 billion in real terms compared with today.

We must also reduce and tackle waste in the health service, and ensure the NHS focuses on using this new money to work smarter and more effectively.

And we’re committed to a comprehensive green paper on social care in the autumn.

Yet I feel very strongly that these vital questions of funding are not the end of the matter – they are merely the first step of a long-term plan for the health and care system.

One that’s nationally agreed, clinically led and locally supported.

I don’t plan to pre-empt our long-term plan today, but I do want to talk about 3 areas where we must make swift and decisive progress for that plan to be a success.

These are my early priorities across health and care: across the whole health and social care system. Workforce, technology, and prevention.

Workforce

First – workforce.

I’ve again seen so vividly this morning the health and care system is nothing without you – the millions of people who turn up every day to improve the lives of complete strangers.

Everyone has their part to play.

It’s often too easy to refer to ‘doctors and nurses’ as a shorthand for the NHS.

But only when the whole workforce has the chance to fulfil their potential can the health and care system operate at its best.

I’ve already seen for myself just how hard you work, and just how much pressure you are under.

On my first day in this job I visited University College Hospital and after a meeting with staff where I listened to what they said I should do and what I should concentrate on, one of the junior doctors literally sprinted out of the room as she didn’t want her patients to miss an MRI appointment.

I am inspired by the utter commitment of paid and unpaid carers who go to such lengths to ensure people receive dignified and professional care when they need it.

The nation’s health is determined by the health of the health and care workforce.

So it is heart-breaking to see how undervalued you often feel.

The sense of duty and public service that motivates you to go into health and care is one of the things that make the NHS the institution it is.

I am determined that the commitment you show to your patients is matched by the commitment we show to you.

So I have a clear message: I value you. I admire you. I will fight for you and I will champion you.

So what does that mean in practice?

First it means receiving the best training and support - the right number of people with the right skills so you are able to provide the safest, highest quality care to patients.

I want to ensure training is organised and funded so that everyone can reach their full potential.

GPs need more assistance to tackle with their substantial workloads.

There is currently a review of GP partnerships ongoing but I also want to see more training to those pharmacists based in GP surgeries and more staff to support them.

I want to support nurses in acute hospitals so they can become advanced nurse practitioners, providing more comprehensive care for patients while freeing up doctors to carry out more of the tasks they trained to do.

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.

And I want to expand the apprenticeships in both health and social care that in a previous ministerial job I introduced. Everyone should have a ladder they can climb and a career they can develop.

You know better than me the pace at which modern medicine moves and so it’s crucial that your training looks to incorporate new technology that can save you time and offer better care.

I want to make sure you have the access to the skills you need to make the most of these new opportunities.

And while I will support you I will also challenge you too.

We all know there are parts of the working culture that needs to change.

Less of a division between management and clinical staff – we are one NHS.

Less of a division between community health services and social care – we are one team.

A culture of mutual respect for everyone.

Where everyone is valued for what they contribute.

Fewer hierarchical, outdated rules.

I want to drive this culture change and I know that you do too.

And let’s talk about managers.

Crucial staff who may attract less attention but who are a vital component of well run health and care organisations large or small.

It matters to clinical staff that their managers are good – everyone has their part to play.

Too often, getting the right people into these roles has been a struggle and I know some of you in management can feel overlooked or undervalued.

So we need to back our managers to manage in a modern, dynamic, way.

I’m interested in how we can increase the pathways into leadership and management – removing the obstacles and getting the incentives right for more doctors, nurses and health professionals to want to take charge of NHS organisations.

Breaking down the tribal barriers between management and clinicians to build a shared leadership agenda for the health service. And I have seen some of this in practice this morning.

And we need better leadership training across the whole health and care system.

Crucially we also need talent from outside at all levels – to develop a strong and diverse pipeline of capable leaders willing to bring their talents to health and care.

That diversity is critical. In many areas diversity is thriving. But not everywhere. And speaking frankly, the NHS leadership community must do more to reflect the wider workforce.

At the moment there are only 5 CEOs from a BAME background. That has to change.

I was horrified that in the last staff survey, 12% of staff responding to it felt discriminated against – and that figure rises to 24% for BAME staff.

While these statistics are from the NHS, the same trends apply to social care and we know its leadership does not fully reflect the diversity of its incredible workforce.

People cannot be expected to deliver world class care when facing bullying and harassment on this scale.

So the culture must change, the NHS will be the better for it and I am determined to lead this change from the top.

So in both health and social care I want your voice to be at the heart of government.

To make this happen I’m going to launch a consultation exercise on workforce issues.

And I’ll be setting up a panel of clinical and professional advisers, from a cross-section of the NHS and social care workforce.

And I want everyone who gives their lives to this amazing vocation to respond to our consultation with their views.

There is every reason why, with determination and the right caring, collaborative and supportive approach the NHS can be the best employer in the world to work for, with high morale at all levels.

That should be our collective goal.

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