he new Well being Secretary unveiled her plan to sort out NHS backlogs on Thursday – together with 7,000 extra hospital beds accessible by this winter and a brand new £500m social care fund.
Nonetheless, Thérèse Coffey’s ‘ABCD’ proposals had been criticised by Labour as “Sesame Road”, with Shadow Well being Secretary Wes Streeting saying: “The Conservatives promising to repair the disaster within the NHS is just like the arsonist promising to place out the hearth they began”.
Setting out her plans to Parliament, Ms Coffey mentioned that each one those that wanted a GP appointment ought to get one inside two weeks and mentioned the Authorities can be exploring a brand new “ambulance auxiliary service” to sort out handover delays.
Measures pledged by Ms Coffey had been extra 999 name handlers, a brand new £500m grownup social care discharge fund, and “intensive work” to create extra capability in hospitals, “the equal of seven,000 extra beds by this winter”.
She mentioned: “Sufferers are my high precedence and I will likely be their champion, specializing in the problems that almost all have an effect on them or their family members.
“More often than not sufferers have an incredible expertise, however we should not paper over the issues that we face.
“We count on backlogs to rise earlier than they fall as extra sufferers come ahead for analysis and therapy after the pandemic.”
Ms Coffey, who took up the publish earlier this month, mentioned she was “decided to deal with one of the irritating issues confronted by sufferers” in getting an appointment to see a physician or attending to see a dentist.
Alongside beforehand trailed plans to set a two-week goal for all those that want a GP appointment to obtain one, Ms Coffey mentioned there can be a larger function for group pharmacists to prescribe sure drugs to unlock GP appointment slots.
She additionally pledged to sort out “dental deserts”, the place areas of the nation are unable to entry dental care on the NHS, by streamlining routes into NHS dentistry for these educated overseas.
“These measures are the beginning, not the tip, of our ambitions for well being and care,” she mentioned.
“They are going to assist us handle the strain well being and care will face this winter and subsequent, and enhance these important companies for the long run. My priorities are sufferers’ priorities, and I’ll endeavour by means of a robust partnership with the NHS and native authorities to degree up care and match the expectations that the general public rightly have.”
Nonetheless, Labour’s shadow well being secretary, Wes Streeting, mentioned the NHS was dealing with the worst disaster in its historical past underneath the Conservative Get together’s rule.
He mentioned: “She says sufferers will be capable to get a GP appointment inside two weeks, her occasion scrapped the assure of an appointment inside two days that Labour launched after we had been in authorities, and he or she made it clear this morning that this isn’t a assure in any respect – merely an expectation.”
He added: “She has no plans to offer the medical doctors that our NHS so desperately wants and regardless of her Sesame Road strategy to politics along with her ABCD plan – by the way in which, final time I checked ‘S’ was for social care, she’s missed the ‘N’ for nurses – with out a plan to sort out the staffing disaster, I say to the Secretary of State: you do not have a plan for the NHS.”
In a nod to a latest interview by which an alarm enjoying Dr Dre interrupted Ms Coffey, Mr Streeting mentioned: “As Dr Dre would possibly say: time for the subsequent episode.”
