Lord Darzi calls for action to cut 'long waits' for MSK care - a major cause of long-term sickness

'Bleak picture'

Responding to the Darzi review NHS Confederation chief executive Matthew Taylor, who was asked by Lord Darzi to lead one of review's engagement sessions, said it ‘paints a bleak picture’ of the current state of the NHS.

Mr Taylor said that, despite working harder than ever before, the NHS faced ‘rising demand’ and had endured a ‘decade of underinvestment and the impact of the pandemic’. ‘The government has taken the first necessary step in diagnosing the problem, and the task now is to move to identifying the prescription.

‘Ministers will need to work on two fronts. First, to help the NHS avoid a winter crisis given the financial crisis that is engulfing the service. NHS leaders are already having to make tough choices about what services and staff they can afford at a time when they actually want to be preparing to ramp up capacity to meet the usual spike in demand over winter.

‘Emergency funding will be needed in the Autumn Budget, not least to boost staff and capacity in social care. We also cannot repeat the mistakes of the past by raiding already overstretched capital budgets to plug holes in day-to-day spending.

‘In parallel, the government needs to prepare for the long term through its planned 10-year strategy. We know this is far from easy given the perilous state of the public finances.

Mr Taylor added: ‘But the fact remains that unless we restore the NHS to the long-term average funding increases it needs, accompanied with changes to the way that local services are delivered, then we will never bring down waiting lists to the levels required as well as preventing more illness from occurring in the first place.’

The 'vital signs are strong’, CSP notes

In its response, the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy (CSP) said it had been invited to contribute to the review through its role as co-convenor of the Community Rehab Alliance.

Community rehab keeps people out of hospital and is essential in a time when more people are living with multiple long-term conditions. The recognition of the growing challenge is very welcome [Rob Yeldham, CSP)

As well as highlighting the damage done to the NHS done by the coalition government in its 2012 NHS reforms by, compounded by a decade of austerity and the Covid pandemic, Lord Darzi had acknowledged that the health service’s ‘vital signs are strong’, the CSP stated.

His ‘roadmap for recovery’ included a call for more care to be moved out of hospitals and into the community and highlighted the ‘growing need for MSK services, impacting on people’s ability to work and bringing consequences for the economy as well as patients.’

Rob Yeldham, CSP director of strategy, said: ‘These are issues we have been calling for action over for many years. Acting on these findings would transform the NHS into a modern, responsive health service that is built around population need.

‘Community rehab keeps people out of hospital and is essential in a time when more people are living with multiple long-term conditions. The recognition of the growing challenge is very welcome.'

Mr Yeldham added: ‘But we need more physios, support workers and other rehab staff to deliver expanded services. So we also welcome the recognition of the pressures our members and other NHS workers face every day.'

The NHS Confederation is a membership organisation that represents the whole healthcare system in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Ara Darzi is the Paul Hamlyn Chair of Surgery at Imperial College London and a consultant surgeon, Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust and the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust. He is also an independent member of the House of Lords.