NHS Long Term Plan Published
With growing pressure on the NHS – people living longer, more people living with long-term conditions, and lifestyle choices affecting people’s health – changes are needed to make sure everybody gets the support they need.
The NHS has produced a ten-year plan, setting out all of the things it wants health services to do better for people across the country.
The Long Term Plan sets out what the NHS wants to do better, including:
- Making it easier for people to access support closer to home and via technology
- Doing more to help people stay well
- Providing better support for people with cancer, mental health conditions, heart and lung diseases, long-term conditions, such as diabetes and arthritis, learning disabilities and autism, and for people as they get older and experience conditions such as dementia.
For these plans to work, the NHS needs to shape local plans based on local needs.
You can read more about what this means either on the Healthwatch England website or on the NHS Long Term Plan website (where you can also download the plan).
What does this mean locally?
NHS organisations have been asked to come up with a local plan explaining how these priorities will be delivered in Coventry and Warwickshire. Healthwatch Coventry and Healthwatch Warwickshire are working together to find out what local people think. What people tell us will be shared with the local NHS and will be used to develop the local plan for Coventry and Warwickshire
Read about te work we have done locally for the NHS Long Term Plan
What is the NHS Long Term Plan?
The Government has announced that the NHS budget will be increased by £20 billion a year. In January, NHS England published an ambitious ten-year plan showing how this extra money will be spent.
The plan set out the areas that the NHS wants to make better, including:
• Improving how the NHS works so that people can get help more easily and closer to home. For example, being able to talk to your doctor on your computer or smartphone; access more services via your GP near where you live; use other community services which could improve your health; and leave hospital without delay when you are well enough.
• Helping more people stay well. This includes things like helping more people to stay a healthy weight or to stop smoking. It covers helping to tackle air pollution and making sure your health isn’t worse because of where you live, the services and treatments available, and the amount of money you have.
• Making care better. The NHS wants to get even better at looking after people with cancer, mental health, dementia, lung and heart diseases, learning disabilities and autism.
• More money invested in technology so that everyone can access services using their phone or computer, and so that health professionals can make better, faster decisions.
