16 September 2024

Lord Darzi’s report made a splash last week with his, and subsequently Keir Starmer’s, description of the NHS as a patient in critical condition dominating the front pages and broadcast media. It was nothing short of a political hand grenade chastising years of Conservative stewardship of the NHS. Austerity and its consequences for capital investment alongside Lansley’s reforms in 2012 were, suggests Darzi, responsible for drastically impacting the UK’s response to COVID-19 and will impact our nation’s health for years to come.

In the third month since the General Election, Labour continues to work hard to land their key message that the Conservatives broke Britain and within that larger picture, the NHS. It’s a message they will continue to hammer home in the run-up to the Budget and we can expect Health Secretary Wes Streeting to go hard on the Darzi Report’s findings in his Labour Party conference speech next week.

Labour’s narrative: public health and prevention

But what happens beyond that? The fast-moving pace of our media, and the public stake in this sector, is such that as soon as Darzi’s report diagnosed the problems, articles started emerging focused on what the solutions might be. Very quickly a narrative set in around public health and prevention, perhaps because coincidentally, a government consultation response on the 9pm watershed for junk food advertising was published on the same day as the Darzi Report.

Whilst we know prevention and public health is central to Labour’s health policy approach, it is no silver bullet. Darzi also believes that moving care from hospital to community settings and transitioning the NHS technologically speaking – from analogue to digital – must be prioritised with equal vigour.

The Government’s 10 Year Plan for NHS recovery and reform will focus on these themes and lay out the roadmap for NHS recovery. Darzi has made clear that repairing the NHS is a marathon, not a sprint and the plan for the recovery won’t be published until the spring. In the meantime, the Government has a lot of work to do to prepare our health service and key stakeholders like the British Medical Association, which have historically been resistant to change, for the reform that is to come.   

How does the Darzi Report align into the Government’s wider plans?

For avid health policy wonks, the question will be where the Government’s Mission Delivery Board fits into this picture. In principle, it’s an excellent idea for driving change and joining up thinking between Government Departments particularly on public health and prevention. But we still don’t know the extent to which the 10 Year NHS Plan will influence the work of the Mission Delivery Board or all the names of people who will be responsible for its various workstreams.

Given that there’s so much in flux, the question I have is whether sound Government communications will be enough to manage the expectations of a population that voted for change, and much like consumers who’ve paid for a service, expect to see the difference quickly. For now the answer is maybe. So much depends on whether Labour works in partnership with sector stakeholders on the 10 Year Plan and thereafter, as well as the extent to which political opponents hold them to account in Parliament and through the media.

Get in touch to discuss the Darzi Report and any other healthcare related issues.