Four Yorkshire hospitals to get assistance from ‘crack teams’ of clinicians to drive down waiting lists


Wes Streeting said that senior doctors will be drafted in to implement reforms aimed at getting patients treated faster in parts of England with the biggest numbers of people out of work due to ill health.
All 20 hospital trusts are in the North or West Midlands, with four across Yorkshire and the Humber.
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Hide AdThose are Rotherham NHS Foundation Trust, Hull University Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust and Sheffield and Doncaster Teaching Hospitals NHS Foundation Trusts.
Speaking at the Labour Party conference in Liverpool, the Health Secretary vowed to “take the best of the NHS to the rest of the NHS.”
The teams have been selected due to their pace of delivery, with some having developed “new ways of working” that allow them to carry out “four times more operations than normal,” Labour said.
They will start with the trusts in the parts of the country with the biggest rates of economic inactivity, Mr Streeting explained.
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Hide AdSome 2.8 million people are out of work due to ill-health, 500,000 more than in 2019, according to the Office for National Statistics.
The Office for Budget Responsibility forecasts that the bill for sickness and disability benefits will soar by £30 billion in the next five years, on current trajectories.
Mr Streeting said: “We’re sending crack teams of top clinicians to hospitals across the country to roll out reforms – developed by surgeons – to treat more patients, and cut waiting lists.
“The first hospitals targeted by these teams will be in areas with the highest numbers of people off work sick.
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Hide Ad“Because our reforms are focused not only on delivering our health mission but also moving the dial on our growth mission.
“We will take the best of the NHS to the rest of the NHS, get sick Brits back to health and back to work.”
A recent health commission by the IPPR think tank found regional health inequalities between the North and the South East are intensifying, and are exacerbated by a growth in economic inactivity.
The commissioners, who included Manchester mayor Andy Burnham, found that the UK’s worsening public health crisis is linked to the country’s faltering economic performance, saying that “better health is the most important medicine our economy needs”.
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Hide AdThe scheme, called The Getting It Right First Time programme has already helped children recover by setting up special paediatric sessions on Fridays in Halifax and Calderdale.
With the 20 new hospitals, NHS England said it would focus on reducing missed appointments, which can be higher in disadvantaged areas due to travel costs, identifying capacity in the private sector and extra training for staff.
Mr Streeting added: “That world class services shouldn’t just be the preserve of the wealthy.
“So starting in the most disadvantaged areas, we will ensure patients’ right to choose where they are treated, and we will build up local health services so it’s a genuine choice.
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Hide Ad“And where there’s capacity in the private sector, patients should be able to choose to go there too, free at the point of use, paid for by the NHS.
“Because working people deserve to be treated on time, just as much as the wealthy.”
Jonathan Lofthouse, group chief executive for NHS Humber Health Partnership which includes Hull’s trust, said: “We very much welcome this support and an acknowledgement from the government that we operate in a region where high levels of deprivation and ill health impact on our economy.”
He added: “Our strategy as an organisation and as part of the wider regional health system is to help patients in ill health back into their communities and back into employment for the greater benefit of the economy as a whole.”
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