Dear colleague
Fit for the Future: 10 Year Health Plan for England
Today we are setting out a bold, ambitious and necessary new course for the NHS, with ‘Fit for the Future’, our 10 Year Health Plan for England.
Throughout our discussions over the last few months, we have heard time and time again from you about the importance of reviving real ambition for our NHS, making sure it will be there for generations to come.
We know from our many conversations with you as NHS staff, along with our wider health and social care workforce, that you are up for the challenge. You are the people driving innovation on the frontline and your fingerprints are all over some of the best ideas in the 10 Year Health Plan.
For too long, too many of you have suffered the frustration of turning up, working incredibly hard, only to leave at the end of the day feeling exhausted and demoralised by the conditions that patients are being treated in because of circumstances beyond your control.
This is a pivotal moment for our health service, and we need the whole team to be on board. In order to move forward, we will need to work together with decisiveness, energy and focus.
We can only do that by getting the foundations right. That means pushing forward with our current reset, prioritising financial discipline, delivering our commitments and keeping a relentless focus on preparing for winter this year. For our part, as we move into medium term planning, we will work quickly to align the centre and regions, so they work to support you better. Simplifying rules and accountability remain absolute priorities for the months ahead.
We know that many of you feel overwhelmed by bureaucracy and exasperated when you can’t deliver the quality of care our patients need and deserve. We also know there is more work we need to do to support every member of our staff to fulfill their potential.
There is a whole generation of NHS staff who we know have never had the chance to work in the NHS when it’s been working at its best. They have not had the experience of working in a system that delivers the highest possible care for patients, that meets its targets and has the space and time to innovate further. That is why a clear aim of this plan is to make the NHS the very best place to work – setting new standards for flexible, modern NHS employment, expanding training opportunities and reducing the burden of admin.
This is now our opportunity to deliver the care that patients deserve, and build a workplace where staff can thrive. It falls to our generation to rebuild our National Health Service to protect the provision of high-quality healthcare, not according to wealth, but according to need.
Through our three shifts – from hospital to community, from analogue to digital, and from treatment to prevention – we will personalise care, give more power to patients, and ensure that the best of the NHS is available to all.
We have asked NHS leaders across the country to work closely with you over the summer to align all of these priorities and agree our collective delivery approach for Fit for the Future – focusing on those elements of the plan that will have the most immediate impact on our staff and patients, whilst looking ahead at the more medium and long-term changes we need to make.
The reason we know we can deliver the change set out in this 10 Year Health Plan is because it is built on the success of those who are already showing us what the future looks like. We have toured the length and breadth of the country and scouted the world for the best examples of innovation and reform, and we are going to seed them across the NHS together.
Delivering this plan will not be easy, but neither was the creation of the National Health Service.
Thank you for everything you do, each and every day, on behalf of our patients. You are the people who make the NHS so special and, through your commitment, compassion and creativity, we will take this plan and create an NHS that is truly fit for the future.
Yours sincerely
Rt Hon Wes Streeting MP
Sir James Mackey, Chief Executive Officer, NHS England