Darzi review says the NHS is in a critical condition but sets out a treatment plan

Even factoring in the many manifestations over recent years of the NHS’s deep crisis, some of Lord Ara Darzi’s findings in his verdict on the state of the service are arresting. A&E is in such “an awful state” that thousands of people die every year because they aren’t seen there fast enough.

“Starving” the service of vital capital funding has left “crumbling buildings, mental health patients being accommodated in Victorian-era cells infested with vermin with 17 men sharing two showers, and parts of the NHS operating in decrepit portable buildings”. Efforts to improve early diagnosis of cancer saw “no progress whatsoever made … between 2013 and 2021”, despite many lives depending on that.

But Darzi’s report is more than just another litany of NHS gloom. Like any good doctor, he has not just diagnosed what ails the patient but also set out his treatment plan to restore good health. Despite concluding that the NHS “is in critical condition”, he adds, reassuringly, “its vital signs are strong”. To prove his case, he cites the service’s “extraordinary depth of clinical talent”, staff’s “shared passion and determination to make the NHS better for our patients” and the fact that “the NHS has more resources than ever before”.

On waiting times, he is quite hopeful that things will – eventually – get better. 

Wes Streeting asked Lord Darzi to make his report a roadmap for the 10-year plan, which is expected next spring. It includes the advice that, with so many staff now feeling so “disengaged” after Covid, the NHS workforce must be re-engaged and re-energised. That is vital for its own sake but also because without happier staff the NHS will not be able to solve its productivity puzzle, which is that, despite record staff numbers and its biggest ever budget, its productivity has fallen. Improved pay should help but better working conditions are needed too.

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Source: The Guardian, 11 September 2024