Following the General Election on Thursday 4 July, the new Government have announced their new Ministerial team, led by Prime Minister Rt Hon Sir Keir Starmer KCB KC MP.
And the King’s Speech delivered on 17 July at the State Opening of Parliament set out the legislation which the new Ministers will oversee. The Secretary of State also announced an ‘Independent Investigation of NHS Performance‘ to report in September 2024.
London MP Rt Hon Wes Streeting, Member of Parliament for Ilford South, is the new Secretary of State for Health and Social Care.
Brought up in Stepney in a single parent family, Streeting was elected to parliament as MP for Ilford North in the 2015 general election, having been a local councillor and Deputy Leader of Redbridge Council since 2010. With a background in student politics and previous positions with Blairite thinktank Progress, the pro-European movement, Stonewall and PWC, Streeting is viewed as being confident, ambitious, and on the right of the Labour Party.
In May 2021, Streeting revealed he had been diagnosed with kidney cancer and stepped back from frontline politics while he received treatment. On 27 July 2021, Streeting announced that he had been declared cancer-free, following an operation to remove one of his kidneys.
Streeting is on the record as saying that the way to reduce waiting times is through better pay and conditions. He has also suggested that the UK should embrace new technologies in the health sector and make greater use of private providers in the NHS to cut waiting lists. In June 2023 he said that the NHS requires three big shifts: “from an excessive focus on hospital care to more focus on neighbourhood and community services; from an analogue service to one that embraces the technological revolution; and from sickness to prevention.” After being Health Secretary he set out his key priorities for his department after declaring the NHS to be broken, and vowed to resolve the junior doctor strikes and decrease waiting times. In a recent interview by Jon Sopel at a Tony Blair Institute conference he expanded on his plans for health and social care in the UK.
The MP for Aberafan Maesteg, Stephen Kinnock MP, is the new Minister of State for Care, with responsibility for general practice.
Son of former Labour Party Leader and Peer Neil Kinnock and former MEP Glenys Kinnock, Mr Kinnock’s personal and professional background is grounded in politics and international affairs. Professionally he has worked in the European Parliament in Brussels, the British Council in St Petersburg and Sierra Leone, and the World Economic Forum based in Geneva. He is married to the former Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, and they have two children – one of whom came out as transgender and non-binary in 2022.
His brief covers workforce, system assurance and data, technology and innovation, hospital and community discharge, health and social care integration and all branches of primary care, in addition to other responsibilities. As a Welsh MP, Mr Kinnock will not be accountable for the NHS and healthcare in his own constituency, given health is an area of policy devolved to the Welsh Government.
Karin Smyth, MP for Bristol South, is the new Minister of State for Health (Secondary Care).
Formerly an NHS Manager with Bristol CCG, and a NED at Bristol North PCT, following her election to Parliament in 2015 Ms Smyth spent a year as PPS to Keir Starmer in his role as Shadow Brexit Secretary. Before being made a Minister, she was a Shadow Health Minister and spoke out about the fragmentation of the NHS.
Her brief covers system oversight, reconfiguration and commissioning, workforce recruitment and retention, industrial relations, professional regulation, NHS data and technology including cyber security and the Federated Data Platform, NHS 111, and oversight of sponsored bodies including NHS England, in addition to other responsibilities.
Andrew Gwynne, MP for Gorton and Denton, is the new Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Public Health and Prevention.
An MP of 19 years standing, Mr Gwynne has held shadow portfolios across home affairs, justice, health, local government and the cabinet office as well as a number of Labour Party coordination roles. He has previously campaigned for justice for the victims and families of the tainted blood scandal and has campaigned locally on health issues. In July 2022 it was revealed that he had Covid-19 for 16 weeks and was diagnosed with Long Covid.
His brief covers health protection, COVID-19, infectious diseases, immunisations, pandemic preparedness and emergency response, health improvement, international liaison, major and long-term conditions and sponsorship of UKHSA, in addition to other responsibilities.
Baroness Gillian Merron is the new Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Patient Safety, Women’s Health and Mental Health.
Formerly the MP for Lincoln from 1997 to 2010, Lady Merron was ennobled in 2021, following a nomination from Labour Party Leader Sir Keir Starmer MP. She served as the Labour Party Lords shadow spokesperson for Health and Social Care from 2021 to 2024 before being appointed as a junior Minister in DHSC following the July election.
Born in Ilford and educated in Wanstead, East London, Merron held a number of Labour Party positions before her election to Parliament in 1997. On election she held a number of junior Ministerial roles across defence, the Northern Ireland office, cabinet office, transport, international development, foreign and commonwealth office, and latterly as Minister of State for Public Health in the year before Labour left office and she lost her seat. Since July 2015 she has been the Chief Executive of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and Vice-President of Liberal Judaism.
Her brief covers patient voice and patient experience including the Patient Safety Commissioner and Healthwatch, patient safety, mental health reform, research, life sciences and innovation, women’s health, gender identity services and sponsorship of CQC and HSSIB, in addition to other responsibilities.
Independent Investigation of NHS Performance
Shortly after the election result was confirmed, the new Secretary of State announced that Lord Ara Darzi is to lead an Independent Investigation of NHS Performance.
The rapid review is to report in September 2024 and will focus on assessing patient access to healthcare, the quality of healthcare being provided and the overall performance of the health system.
King’s Speech – State Opening of Parliament, 17 July 2024
You can read the speech and the Government’s background notes here. Standout areas affecting us/ our constituents include:
From the speech:
“My Government will improve the National Health Service as a service for all, providing care on the basis of need regardless of the ability to pay. It will seek to reduce the waiting times, focus on prevention and improve mental health provision for young people. It will ensure mental health is given the same attention and focus as physical health. My ministers will legislate to modernise the Mental Health Act so it is fit for the twenty first century [Mental Health Bill]. A Bill will be introduced to progressively increase the age at which people can buy cigarettes and impose limits on the sale and marketing of vapes [Tobacco and Vapes Bill]. My Ministers will also legislate to restrict advertising of junk food to children along with the sale of high caffeine energy drinks to children. A draft Bill will be brought forward to ban conversion practices [Draft Conversion Practices Bill].”
Digital Information and Smart Data Bill
P40-p42
This Bill will enable new uses of data to be developed and deployed “and will improve people’s lives by making public services work better by reforming data sharing and standards; help scientists and researchers make more life enhancing discoveries by improving our data laws; and ensure your data is well protected by giving the regulator (the ICO) new, stronger powers and a more modern structure. These measures start delivering on the Government’s commitment to better serve the British public through science and technology.”
Background notes say:
- “…we will apply information standards to IT suppliers in the health and social care system.”
- “The Bill will help our scientists make better use of data for world-class research by reflecting the realities of modern interdisciplinary science research in our data laws. Scientists will be able to ask for broad consent for areas of scientific research, and allow legitimate researchers doing scientific research in commercial settings to make equal use of our data regime.”
- “The Bill also establishes a Data Preservation Process that coroners (and procurators fiscal in Scotland) can initiate when they decide it is necessary and appropriate to support their investigations into a child’s death. This will help coroners get access to online information they need when investigating a child’s death.”
Draft Conversion Practices Bill
P80-81
This Bill will deliver on the manifesto commitment to bring forward a full, trans-inclusive ban on conversion practices.
Background notes say:
- “The draft Conversion Practices Bill will propose new offences to target acts of conversion practices that are not captured by existing legislation. The Government wants to ensure that the criminal law offers protection from these abusive practices, while also preserving the freedom for people, and those supporting them, to explore their sexual orientation and gender identity. This will mean those providing medical care and support are in no way impacted by this Bill.”
Tobacco and Vapes Bill
P82-83
This Bill will introduce a progressive smoking ban.
Background notes say:
- “Up to 75,000 GP appointments can be attributed to smoking each month – over 100 appointments every hour. Smokers’ need for health care at a younger age creates costs, with smoking costing the NHS around £1.9 billion each year.”
Mental Health Bill
P84-86
This Bill will modernise the Mental Health Act 1983 and “…make it fit for the 21st century so that patients have greater choice, autonomy, rights and support, and make sure all patients are treated with dignity and respect throughout their treatment.”
Background notes say:
- It “…includes a wide range of changes to shift the balance of power from the system to the patient, putting service users at the centre of decisions about their own care.”
- It will “…further limiting the extent to which people with a learning disability and/or autistic people can be detained and treated under the Mental Health Act and supporting such individuals to live fulfilling lives in their community. It will do this by introducing duties on commissioners to improve understanding of the risk of crisis amongst people with a learning disability and/or autistic people in their local area and also ensure an adequate supply of community services to prevent inappropriate detentions.”
- It will “…strengthen[ing] the voice of patients by adding statutory weight to patients’ rights to be involved with planning for their care, and to make choices and refusals regarding the treatment they receive.”
- It will “…remove[ing] police stations and prisons as places of safety under the Mental Health Act to ensure people experiencing a mental health crisis or with severe mental health needs are supported in the most appropriate setting.”
- It will “…support[ing] offenders with severe mental health problems to access the care they need as quickly and early as possible, and improve the management of those patients subject to a restriction order (for the purposes of public protection).”
The caveat to the above is that “We plan to introduce these reforms in phases as resources allow, and we will not commence new powers unless we have sufficient staff in place that means it is safe to do so.”