Let patients pay to skip NHS queue, says Tony Blair

Let patients pay to skip NHS queue, says Tony Blair amid warnings ailing service may not survive another five years and that record waiting list will keep rising (but Steve Barclay insists 75-year-old system can thrive without drastic reform)

• NHS patients should be able to pay to access care faster, Sir Tony Blair has said
• Health Secretary admitted service needs to adapt but it should not be ‘big bang’

NHS patients should be able to pay to access care faster, Sir Tony Blair has urged.

On the health service’s 75th birthday, the former Prime Minister warned it may not survive another five years without a ‘fundamental reform’. 

He claimed letting Brits fork out to skip record queues could help the ailing system thrive. 

Options to ‘co-pay’ for treatment that is approved in the UK but the NHS would not normally fund may also ease unsustainable pressure, Sir Tony said. 

Labour also warned today that the NHS ‘will die’ without urgent changes.  

Health Secretary Steve Barclay today admitted the health service, which gets in the region of £150billion-a-year, needs to adapt.

However, he said this should stem from a gradual change rather than the ‘big bang’ critics have demanded and insisted that the Government is ‘fully committed’ to the founding principle of it being ‘free at the point of use’.

It comes as a minister today admitted that the record NHS backlog, which currently stands at 7.4million people, is only set to keep growing.

Knock-on effects of Covid and lockdowns, never-ending strikes and a staffing crisis have heaped huge pressure on hospitals.

The number of people waiting for routine hospital treatment in England soared to a record 7.42million (red line) in April, figures show. More than 370,000 people in the queue for routine ops, such as hip replacements, were waiting for more than a year (yellow bars)

There should also be the option to ‘co-pay’ for treatment that is approved in the UK but the health service would not normally fund, Sir Tony Blair (left) recommended, warning that the NHS is unlikely to see its 80th birthday without radical reform. Health Secretary Steve Barclay (right) today admitted that the health service needs to adapt but said this should be a gradual change rather than a ‘big bang’.

In a report by the Tony Blair Institute, the former Labour leader said while the NHS is based on the principle of free care for all, the number of Brits going private has ‘rocketed’ in recent years as the service struggled to provide timely care.

He blamed this on Brits facing long waiting lists, difficulties seeing their GP and the ‘complicated and inefficient’ process to access care.

As a result, Sir Tony called for an NHS overhaul, including working with more private providers and partners to introduce ‘co-payment options’ that allow Brits to pay to access treatment faster or ‘co-pay’ towards care that is approved by the NHS, but it would not usually fund.

He warned the health service ‘unresponsive’ to the digital transformation, the workforce is overstretched and morale is poor.

Sir Tony’s other recommendations include every Brit have their own personal health account on the NHS App, which is ‘owned by the patient not the service’.

Thousands of children to receive NHS care at home under ‘virtual wards’ expansion 

Thousands of children are to be treated on so-called virtual wards as the NHS expands the rollout of the service across England.

NHS bosses said that the use of the system to monitor children at home will offer parents ‘peace of mind’.

Officials say virtual wards can help patients avoid unnecessary hospital trips altogether, or enable them to be sent home from hospital sooner.

Using various equipment and technology, clinicians can monitor vital signs such as a patient’s heart rate, oxygen levels and temperature remotely.

A virtual ‘ward round’ can involve in-person visits or video consultations with clinicians from various specialities, who can order a range of tests and treatments – including blood tests, prescribing medication or administering fluids through an intravenous drip.

The initiative is a key part of NHS plans to recover services after the pandemic and more than 160,000 adult patients and 6,400 children have already been successfully treated on virtual wards.

To mark it’s 75th anniversary, the NHS announced that it is to create an additional 10,000 virtual ward beds by winter – including more for children and ensuring that the service will be available for families in every region in England.

Paediatric virtual wards have already been successfully be trialled in Blackpool and Dorset, officials said, offering care for conditions from asthma to heart problems.

Amanda Pritchard, chief executive of the NHS in England, said: ‘As the NHS celebrates its 75th anniversary today, it is amazing to see how services have changed since our foundation. Virtual wards are already providing excellent care to families when their children are sick, and this expansion will enable thousands more to receive high quality care from home.

‘Being treated at home can have a hugely positive impact on patients – it means they receive hospital level care, but it also means they’re not separated from their families – providing peace of mind for loved ones.

‘As we look to the next 75 years of the NHS, we will continue to embrace the latest technologies and innovations to meet the changing needs of patients while ensuring that care is as convenient as possible.’

The mother of a baby who has received care on a virtual ward described how the system benefited the family.

One-year-old Hope Ezard, was born prematurely and has a rare neurodevelopmental disorder, GNB5, as well as chronic lung disease and feeding issues.

The youngster, who has four siblings, has been in and out of hospital most of her life but after the introduction of the paediatric virtual ward at Blackpool Teaching Hospitals, some of her care can be given remotely.

Hope’s mother, Sarah, 39, said: ‘Hope has a high care demand, but being able to receive some of that care at home is so beneficial to Hope, and our other children.

‘We know that in general, Hope doesn’t sleep very well when she’s in hospital and is more vulnerable to hospital infections, so there is peace of mind when she’s being cared for at home, on the virtual ward, she’s less likely to pick up anything that might make her more poorly, and she’s relaxed and comfortable in her own bed.

‘For us, it’s amazing that we can have her at home with us as much as we do, and I would encourage other parents and families to talk to their doctors and nurses about paediatric virtual wards in their area.’

It would include their health data from smartwatches, self-testing and diagnosis that, with patient permission, can be accessed by the NHS and private companies.

Additionally, patients should be able to access ‘a lot of basic care’ more easily through pharmacies, at work, in gyms and supermarkets.

Using technology to do or help with NHS work, hiring more digital experts and expanding the use of whole-genome sequencing were among Sir Tony’s other recommendations.

While the Health Secretary today acknowledged that the NHS needs to change and adapt to improving technology and medical advancements, he said this should be a ‘constant evolution — not a big bang moment’.

Writing in The Times, Mr Barclay added: ‘But equally, in order to keep improving care for patients and providing value for money for taxpayers, we’ve made clear the NHS needs to continue to reform. 

‘That has been a key message of this Government, as shown by our shift to modern methods of construction in our new hospitals programme, backed by over £20billion.

‘It also includes the publication of the NHS Long-Term Workforce Plan last week — the first of its kind in the history of the NHS.

‘Backed by over £2.4billion, it sets out how the NHS will address existing vacancies and meet new challenges by recruiting and retaining hundreds of thousands more staff over the next 15 years, as well as modernising and reforming the way they work.’

It comes after former Health Secretary Sajid Javid yesterday called for an overhaul of the NHS, describing the service as ‘frozen in time’.

Mr Javid said that the current structure of the NHS has left Brits sicker than those in many other Western countries, with the UK having lower life expectancy and cancer survival.

The MP for Bromsgrove said both major political parties privately believe the NHS is ‘unsustainable’ in its current form and will be unable to cope with surging demand, despite record levels of funding.

But Mr Barclay disputed this — writing that ‘colleagues across Government’ are ‘fully committed’ to the NHS founding principle of ‘free at the point of care’. 

‘I’m confident that with our plans for recovery and reform and an embrace of technology and innovation, it will be fit to deliver the best care to patients for another 75 years,’ he said. 

Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who has backed using the private sector to bolster the NHS, echoed calls for reform to make the service sustainable for the long term.

He told Times Radio: ‘We’ve got to shift the focus of care from hospital into the wider community, fix the front door to the NHS in general practice, more care and support for in people’s homes. 

‘We’ve got to shift the system from being an analogue system to one that’s more digitally-driven and able to harness the enormous opportunities from life sciences and technology that we have in this country.

‘And thirdly, we’ve got to — in a broader sense, beyond the NHS — focus on preventing ill health, promoting good health.’

He added: ‘If we have those three big shifts, we will have an NHS that’s fit for the future, free at the point of use, there for us when we need it. 

‘But that’s a far cry from where we are today, where we’ve got the absurd spectacle of ministers celebrating the 75th anniversary of an institution that they have broken.’

Meanwhile, leading think tanks today warned that the NHS will not be around to celebrate its 100th birthday without more investment.

The King’s Fund, Health Foundation and Nuffield Trust said the NHS is the ‘jewel in the country’s crown’ but the service faces ‘huge challenges’. 

In a letter to Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and the leaders of the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties — Sir Keir Starmer and Sir Ed Davey — the organisations said the NHS has ‘endured a decade of underinvestment’.

Without action the service will face ‘managed decline that gradually erodes the guarantee of safety… it was designed to create’, they said.

The think tanks called for investment in the service, reform in the social care sector and action to address the ‘fraying health of the UK population’.

The letter states: ‘Seventy-five years after its creation, the National Health Service is in critical condition.

NHS funding is has risen sharply in recent years, with a total budget of £152.6 billion in 2022/23, some £28.4 billion more than in 2016/17 at 2022/23 prices. The graph does not reflect the extra £2.4billion pledged by the Government in its long-term workforce plan 

The proposals are detailed in the first NHS Long-Term Workforce Plan, which is published today and supported by £2.4billion of Government funding

‘Pressures on services are extreme and public satisfaction is at its lowest since it first began to be tracked 40 years ago.

‘Despite this, public support for the NHS as an institution is rock solid — it still tops surveys about what makes people most proud to be British, and the public are unwavering in their support for its founding principles: free at the point of use, comprehensive and available to all.’

It comes as Health Minister Maria Caulfield today admitted that the record 7.4million waiting list for NHS treatment in England — up from around 4million before the pandemic — could increase further.

She told Sky News this morning: ‘To patients, what matters is how long they’re waiting. They’re not really worried about who else is on the waiting list.

READ MORE: First baby born on the NHS 75 years ago warns struggling service is being ‘taken for granted’

Aneira Thomas said she feels it is her ‘duty’ to inform people about the NHS

‘They want to know when their procedure or operation is happening, and we’ve significantly reduced that delay. We’ve virtually eliminated a two-year wait.’

Challenged on the 7.4million figure, she said: ‘That probably will go up higher because we are offering more procedures.’

But ‘the length of time people are waiting for their procedures is actually going down and that’s what matters to patients’.

Latest NHS data shows that more than 7.42million patients in England — or one in eight people — were in the queue for ops like hip replacements in April.

This includes 370,000 people stuck in limbo for at least a year, often in pain.

Efforts to bring down the backlog have been hampered by strikes, with 648,000 appointments, procedures and operations rescheduled as a result of walkouts in England, since the first mass walkout of nurses started in mid-December.

Medics plan to take to picket lines again this month, with junior doctors planning to stage a five-day strike from July 13 to 18. Consultants, the most senior doctors in the NHS, are also planning action on July 20 and 21.

It comes after the Prime Minister last week detailed the ‘most ambitions plan in NHS history’ to slash waiting lists and boost the NHS workforce with 60,000 more doctors and an extra 170,000 nurses by 2036/37.

Bosses also expect to have an additional 71,000 allied health professionals such as physiotherapists, midwives and pharmacists.

The proposals are part of the first NHS Long-Term Workforce Plan, which is set to be backed by £2.4billion of Government funding. 

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