Whenever I speak to people in Hitchin, Harpenden, and the villages, the NHS is high on the agenda. People rightly expect that their health service delivers for them, providing patients with the care that they need in a timely fashion. That's why I'm proud to support the Government's efforts to bring down the NHS waiting list after a Covid-induced spike, and it's why I'm also proud to support the Government's investments in NHS digitalisation, which will make it faster and easier to get an appointment. By sticking to the plan Rishi Sunak and the Conservatives have cut waiting lists by around 200,000 since September, helping patients get the care they need more quickly.
However, getting it right on the NHS isn't just about ensuring that people can get appointments - it's also about making sure that patients have the right to choose when, where, and how to access to treatment and care. Last week, the Government announced its plan for the largest expansion of patient choice in a decade, allowing patients to choose when, where and how they access non-hospital treatment including podiatry, hearing aid care and some diagnostics tests, with pilots launching in the autumn. Under the proposals, patients requiring routine treatment outside of hospitals will be able to choose between multiple services across the NHS and independent sector. This expansion of choice will give patients access to faster, more convenient treatment.
Subject to the results of local pilots, the government and NHS intend to expand choice to many more areas of the country and many more services.
Improved patient choice can lead to shorter waiting times for patients, where another option is available and is clinically appropriate. It may also have an impact on the overall longer waiter position by either incentivising providers to offer appointments or enabling prioritisation of long waiters across the system.
The government and NHS also announced last week that they will implement the recommendations of the chair of the Independent Patient Choice and Procurement Panel that help to remove the barriers to patients exercising choice, including by publishing more data on choice and appointment bookings to help ensure that patients are more readily able to choose their hospital care and support the further expansion of choice.
I'm proud to support a Government that gives patients more freedom over how, when, and where they're treated - we must always remember that the NHS exists to serve the public, and so the public must have flexibility in how it interfaces with that service.
