The Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK) has set out five priorities for new health secretary Yvette Cooper as it urged her to listen to the voices of frontline doctors and of patients.
DAUK welcomed the appointment of Cooper as an opportunity to restore trust, strengthen public services and place patient safety at the heart of NHS reform.
Dr Matt Kneale, DAUK co-chair, said: “The NHS does not lack the commitment of its staff. It lacks a coherent settlement that enables enough doctors to train and stay, protects patients when they are most vulnerable and gives clinicians confidence that policy is driven by evidence rather than short term expediency.”
Dr Steve Taylor, DAUK GP co-lead, added: “We welcome Yvette Cooper into her role as the new Health and Social Care Secretary, and look forward to the opportunity to work with her.
“She takes on the role with so much to do and many in the NHS workforce disillusioned.
Collaboration and listening
“We look forward to a new day of collaboration and listening to the people who work in the NHS and patient voices. Top down reorganisation and implementation is not the answer.”
With GPs and consultants in dispute with Government, waiting lists still at record levels and pressures across the system, it’s important that she understands the challenges ahead.
“The previous spin of success hid a lot of issues but there are solutions to be found in collaboration.”
DAUK has asked Cooper and new Prime Minister Andy Burnham to make five commitments to healthcare.
Five commitments
- End the medical training bottleneck. Publish specialty by specialty training numbers, fund a credible expansion to meet medical school output and NHS need, and guarantee fair progression for doctors already serving the NHS, including SAS doctors and locally employed doctors.
- Guarantee doctor-led assessment where it matters most. Set national standards so that patients urgently referred by a GP, and patients with undifferentiated symptoms in hospital, are assessed by a doctor or have discharge approved by one. Non-doctor roles should complement doctors, never replace medical assessment.
- Rebuild the family doctor model. Properly fund general practice to provide timely access, continuity and safe clinical decision making. Pause unfunded or unsafe access requirements until they have been independently safety tested and properly resourced.
- Restore fair and independent medical regulation. Remove the GMC’s separate power to appeal decisions of its own tribunal, protect the independence of the MPTS and ensure independent oversight sits with the Professional Standards Authority. A regulator cannot credibly be investigator, prosecutor and appellant.
- Treat the climate and nature crisis as an urgent health crisis, ensuring health infrastructure is adapted to be safe in extreme heat by introducing enforceable maximum safe temperatures for healthcare facilities, delivering a public awareness campaign on the relationship between climate change and health, and supporting an accelerated program of decarbonisation and nature restoration for health.
Dr Kneale said: “These are practical, deliverable reforms that would improve patient safety, retain skilled clinicians and demonstrate that the Government is listening to those delivering care every day.
“We would welcome an early meeting with you and your team to discuss how frontline clinicians can help shape and deliver this programme.”
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