Lord Darzi Report into the NHS

Lord Darzi report into the state of the NHS, assessing patient access and quality of care

Lord Darzi was asked to undertake a rapid investigation of the state of the NHS, assessing patient access, quality of care and the overall performance of the health system. Within his report dated September 2024, which followed a 9 week investigation and input from numerous charities, professional bodies and other organisations, he made a number of key findings. Most of the findings will come as no surprise to many Clinical Negligence Practitioners. I would strongly encourage anyone who is interested in the NHS to read Lord Darzi’s report, but I wanted to discuss a few key issues he raises.

What does the Darzi report highlight?

Lord Darzi highlights that the health of the nation has drastically changed over recent years. People are obviously living longer than they were when the NHS was introduced, but the general health of the nation has deteriorated, and people are also spending more time living with ill-health. There has also been an increase in the number of people who have multiple long-term health conditions. This has been recognised for a while and was acknowledged in the Governments ‘Major conditions strategy’ published last year. The cause of this is multi-factorial, but Lord Darzi highlights that many of the social determinants of health – such as housing, income and employment – have also been moving in the wrong direction for the last 15 years.

Access to healthcare

Along with a deterioration in people’s general health, there are difficulties in accessing healthcare. This means that conditions can progress, untreated, with devastating results. Everyone knows how difficult it is to get a GP appointment currently. Lord Darzi confirms, ‘From access to GPs and to community and mental health services, on to accident and emergency, and then to waits not just for more routine surgery and treatment but for cancer and cardiac services, waiting time targets are being missed’.

Access to social care

Lord Darzi notes that due to Government cuts to expenditure, although the demand for social care has risen, publicly funded social care is now provided for fewer people. This causes issues with families not being able to obtain appropriate care for their loved ones in the community. This also leads to delays in people being discharged from hospital, as there is no appropriate care package in place. Lord Darzi confirms that, ‘The impact of delayed discharges is equivalent to 13 per cent of all NHS beds’.

Access to community services

Community services in general have been part of the Government’s strategy to improve healthcare for a number of years, but Lord Darzi documents that, ‘As of June this year, more than 1 million people were waiting for community services, including more than 50,000 people who had been waiting for over a year, 80 per cent of whom are children and young people’.

Has this had an affect on the number of clinical negligence claims?

All of these issues have impacted upon the quality of care being provided and people’s experience of the NHS. Under the section dealing with the quality of care across various sectors, Lord Darzi comments that it is ‘striking’ that complaints about the NHS have doubled over the last decade. He also notes that clinical negligence claims payouts have increased to £2.9 billion or 1.7% of the entire NHS budget. However, surprisingly, Lord Darzi does not suggest that lawyers or legal costs are a driver for this increase. He instead appears to suggest that that the quality of care being provided is the cause. In relation to maternity care, which lead to some of the highest compensation payouts in clinical negligence cases, he notes, ‘The lack of progress in some areas occurs at a time when we have had a succession of scandals and subsequent inquiries into maternal care, such as in East Kent, Shrewsbury and Morecambe Bay. A recurring theme is that the recommendations of previous reviews have not been universally adopted’.

Clinical Negligence Practitioners have been campaigning for many years to improve healthcare standards and the point that has been re-iterated is that, if Hospitals learn from mistakes and appropriate care is provided going forward, then claims will be reduced and payouts will decrease.

Lord Darzi concludes that the NHS is in critical condition, but it’s vital signs are strong. He sets out ten themes, which he believes should inform the 10 year government health plan, to help to repair the NHS. However, he suggests that these will need to be considered alongside strategies to improve the nation’s health and with reforms to social care.

How Been Let Down can help you

Here at Been Let Down, we are expert clinical negligence solicitors. We help individuals and families to recover compensation to access support and attempt to put them in the position in which they would have been had the medical negligence not occurred.

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Source

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/independent-investigation-of-the-nhs-in-england