Health and Social Care: Winter Update

Baroness Cass Excerpts

Tuesday 21st January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Merron (Lab)]

I am grateful to the noble Lord. These things do not just happen; we are here because of a failure to reform, a failure to invest and a failure to get the right productivity and results that we need. Indeed, there has been a failure over a number of years to do exactly what the noble Lord spoke about. I could not have put it better myself. The noble Lord came up with the most marvellous advert in his comments for the central pillars, to which I referred, of the 10-year plan, which will soon be available, following the biggest ever consultation in the history of the NHS.

The noble Lord talked about community. One of the things that we will be ensuring will happen in the NHS is a movement of focus from hospital into community. The noble Lord talked about digital. We will move from analogue to digital. He also talked about services being around the patient. I have frequently said that we need to get the services around the patient, not the patient around the services. There is also the move from sickness to prevention. All these three pillars will completely transform the National Health Service.

The noble Lord also referred to the third sector, including charities. We could not deliver much of what we deliver without them, and charities often are extremely well-placed to do things that statutory services cannot, so they are part of the equation and I offer all respect to them.

[Baroness Cass (CB)]

My Lords, the investment described in additional GPs is really welcome, as are the other reforms in primary care. However, one of the challenges in previous recruitment drives into primary care has been losing people from the other end and not being able to retain. Therefore, will the Minister tell us about retention strategies and how they will counteract that really troubling trend?