A call for ‘direction, clarity, and leadership’

All against a backdrop where public healthcare funding looks set to remain largely static for at least the next 3-5 years, was the theme of an impassioned keynote address by former Health Secretary and Labour MP for Darlington, Alan Milburn, at the recent Future Health & Care Expo conference and exhibition in London. HEJ editor Jonathan Baillie reports.

Beginning a rousing keynote speech on the opening day of October’s Future Health & Care Expo event at Islington’s Business Design Centre – during which he made clear his own “serious concerns” about the direction in which the NHS was heading under the current proposals for change – the former Health Secretary said that, “as well as reading and writing health Bills”, while in his former senior Government role, he had “talked to a lot to people about reform”. One key conclusion, whether discussing the major healthcare issues with key players in the UK, South Africa, the US, elsewhere in Europe, or indeed Australia, was that healthcare was “in crisis” worldwide; many different countries – with diverse social structures, economies, and healthcare systems – were facing similar issues in how best to look after the sick given both shrinking capital funding and an ageing demographic. Focusing specifically on the UK, Alan Milburn told delegates that, while he believed the NHS had seen little significant organisational or structural change for around 40 years following the service’s establishment in 1948, the next two and a half decades had seen “a raft of almost continuous change”. Now, with the harsh economic backdrop, and predictions that worse was to come, he believed the NHS faced a potential “perfect storm” – thanks to “a toxic combination of rapidly changing health needs and dwindling financial revenues”.

Requirement for ‘a new model of care’