Streeting to unveil extra investment for English hospitals that cut waiting times fastest

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Hospitals in England that make rapid improvements in waiting times for care will be rewarded with a share of millions of pounds of extra investment in buildings and equipment, Wes Streeting will announce on Monday.

The move by the Health Secretary is intended to encourage NHS leaders to achieve a target of 92 per cent of patients not waiting more than 18 weeks to start non-urgent treatment after being referred to a consultant.

Last month Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer injected new urgency into the benchmarks, first set by Tony Blair two decades ago, when he named them six “milestones” for his administration and promised they would be met by the end. The current parliament.

But the benchmark has not been achieved for nearly 10 years, as austerity, epidemics and the increasing demands of an aging and growing population put pressure on health services.

Ahead of Monday’s announcement, Department of Health officials told the Financial Times that extra funding for capital projects – such as high-tech new scanners or much-needed ward maintenance – would be available to NHS trusts that made the biggest improvements over the 18-week mark. Referral to treatment standards.

Performance will be measured by the percentage of patients seen within that time frame, they said.

The lure of additional capital funding will resonate in a service that comparable countries have long lagged behind in terms of money invested in infrastructure.

In a government-commissioned report last year, Lord Ara Dorjee, a surgeon and former health minister, identified a A capital shortfall of around £37bn.

Streeting said some hospital trusts were already leading the way, running surgeries in “innovative, more productive ways”. This government will help them invest new capital and get them through the backlog”.

Trusts that treat more patients should be paid more for their work “and reward good performance to encourage great performance – that’s how we’ll reduce waiting times”, he added.

The proposal will form part of an elective reform plan, to be published by the government and the NHS on Monday, which will set out how the NHS will return to the 18-week standard.

The drive is being supported by the £25.6bn announced for the NHS in the October Budget. Ministers said the extra money would help fund an extra 2 million appointments within a year, but health leaders warned “Confusion” over whether to prioritize Hitting performance targets or winter surges in admissions.

At the end of October, the most recent figures available, patients were waiting for 7.54 million procedures and appointments. About 40 percent of people were waiting longer than 18 weeks.

The pressure on the NHS was underlined by Friday’s data showing a Sharp increase in flu cases During the festival. More than 5,000 patients were hospitalized with the virus by the end of last week, about 3.5 times more than the same week in 2023.

Ministers are also facing a backlash from campaigners and opposition parties after Streeting said on Friday that a new commission studying how to reform social care would not produce a final report until 2028.

It is more than a quarter of a year since the publication of the first of several major inquiries into social care, which has long weighed heavily on the NHS but was barely mentioned in the lead-up to the 2024 general election.