Unlock Editor’s Roundup for free
Roula Khalaf, editor of the FT, picks her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
Hospitals in England that deliver the fastest improvements in waiting times for care will be rewarded with a share of millions of pounds in extra investment in buildings and equipment, Wes Streeting will announce on Monday.
The health secretary’s move is intended to stimulate NHS leaders to achieve a target of 92 per cent of patients waiting no 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 standard, first set by Tony Blair two decades ago, when he named it one of six “milestones” for his administration and vowed to to be fulfilled by the end of the current parliament.
But the standard has not been met for nearly 10 years, as austerity measures, the pandemic and rising demand from an aging and growing population added to the strain on the health service.
Ahead of Monday’s announcement, health department officials told the Financial Times that extra funding for capital projects – such as new high-tech scanners or much-needed ward maintenance – would be available to NHS trusts that made the greatest improvements in meeting the 18-week baseline treatment standard.
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 has long lagged behind comparable countries in the amounts invested in infrastructure.
In a government-commissioned report last year, Lord Ara Darzi, a surgeon and former health minister, identified a capital shortfall of around £37 billion.
Streeting said some hospital funds were already leading the way, performing surgery “in innovative, more productive ways. This government will support them with new capital investments and let them pass the arrears”.
Trusts that treat more patients should be paid more for their work “and good performance should be rewarded to incentivize great performance – this is how we will reduce waiting times”, he added.
The proposal will form part of an electoral reform plan, to be published on Monday by the government and the NHS, which will set out how the NHS will return to the 18-week standard.
The project is supported by the £25.6bn announced for the NHS in October’s budget. Ministers say the extra money will help fund an extra 2 million appointments a year, but health chiefs have warned of “confusion” over whether to prioritize hitting performance targets or a winter increase 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 had waited more than 18 weeks.
Pressures on the NHS were underlined by data on Friday showing a sharp rise in flu cases over the festive period. More than 5,000 patients were admitted to hospital with the virus at the end of last week, almost 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 overhaul social care would not make its final report until 2028.
More than a quarter of a century has passed since the publication of the first of several major inquiries into social care, which has weighed heavily on the NHS but was barely mentioned during the 2024 general election.
