Secretary of State for Health and Social Care (): As this House is
aware, the health and social care system faces long-term
challenges to ensure the public enjoy longer and healthier lives.
Currently in England, 5.4 million people live with cardiovascular
disease, around 8.6 million live with chronic respiratory disease
and 8.2 million people live with mental health issues.
An increasing number of us live with one or more major
conditions. People with diabetes are twice as likely to have
depression. Nine in ten dementia patients have another long-term
condition. Half of people with a heart or lung condition have
musculoskeletal disorders.
Tackling the major conditions that lead to people spending more
years in ill health is a significant opportunity to improve the
lives of millions of people. That is why today, I am announcing
that, in consultation with NHS England and colleagues across
government, my Department will develop and publish a Major
Conditions Strategy.
The Strategy will set out a strong and coherent policy agenda
that sets out a shift to integrated, whole-person care, building
on measures that we have already taken forward through the NHS
Long Term Plan. Interventions set out in the Strategy will aim to
alleviate pressure on the health system, as well as support the
government’s objective to increase healthy life expectancy and
reduce ill-health related labour market inactivity.
Our approach will be rooted in the best understanding of the
evidence to tackle the major conditions which contribute to the
burden of disease in England, namely:
- Cancers
- Cardiovascular diseases, including stroke and diabetes
- Chronic respiratory diseases
- Dementia
- Mental ill health
- Musculoskeletal disorders
These areas account for around 60% of total Disability Adjusted
Life Years in England. Tackling them is critical to achieving our
manifesto commitment of gaining five extra years of Healthy Life
Expectancy by 2035, and our levelling up mission to narrow the
gap in Healthy Life Expectancy by 2030.
Our approach will harness the potential of whole person care,
addressing the fact that our health and care system has been
built in silos, often focused around specific diseases or organs
in the body. Our workforce model needs to adapt, reflecting that
the NHS is caring for patients with increasingly complex needs
and with multiple long-term conditions. We need greater emphasis
on generalist medical skills to complement existing deep
specialist expertise in the NHS, supporting clinical
professionals to heal with whole person care. The Major
Conditions Strategy and the upcoming NHS Long Term Workforce Plan
work together to set out the standards patient should expect in
the short term and over a five year timeframe.
This is about shifting our model towards preserving good health,
and the early detection and treatment of diseases. We have a
proud record of opening new treatment possibilities in the NHS.
Diseases that were once a death sentence have become conditions
that can be managed over the long term. By harnessing innovation
and technology we are increasingly capable of detecting diseases
at an early stage, in some cases before symptoms emerge.
Intervening at this point will reduce demand downstream on health
and care services.
Healthy, fulfilled, independent and longer lives for the people
of England will require health and care services, local
government, NHS bodies, and others to work ever more closely
together. People living in England’s most deprived places live,
on average, 19 fewer years in good health than those in the least
deprived places. The Strategy will set out the supporting and
enabling interventions the centre can make to ensure that ICSs
and the organisations within them maximise the opportunities to
tackle clusters of disadvantage in their local areas where they
exist, informed by the Hewitt Review. This will include
addressing unwarranted variation in outcomes and the care people
receive in the context of the recovery from the pandemic.
This work combines our key commitments in mental health, cancer,
dementia and health disparities into a single, powerful strategy.
It will align to the government’s ambitious Life Sciences
Missions. We will take forward a separate Suicide Prevention
Strategy this year.
Alongside work on common diseases the Department and the NHS also
continue work on rare diseases, under the 2021 UK Rare Diseases
Framework. All four nations of the UK have now published their
first action plan, and England’s second Rare Diseases Action Plan
is currently being finalised.
As we develop this Strategy I continue to be grateful for the
thoughts and contributions from colleagues across the House,
stakeholders, citizens and industry. I will set out opportunities
to contribute further in due course. We also intend to publish an
interim report on the Strategy in the summer.
Strategies alone will not change outcomes. Delivery will require
concerted effort from government and the NHS working in tandem,
alongside social care, patient representatives, industry and
partners across the health and care system.
