13 September 2024

Major review of NHS calls for investment in primary care

Lord Darzi's independent investigation says the NHS is in a "critical condition".

The investigation reports that the NHS in England is overly dependent on a hospital model of care, which has struggled to deliver productivity gains, in part due to a £37 billion capital spending gap since 2010. It goes on to state that the "NHS budget is not being spent where it should be - too great a share is being spent in hospitals, too little in the community, and productivity is too low."

It concludes that the NHS must reform, stay free at the point of use and "lock in the shift of care closer to home by hardwiring financial flows" to expand primary and community care.

The prime minister has responded be saying the NHS is broken, but offered no extra funding without reform.

Summing up the major changes needed, Wes Streeting, the health secretary, said the NHS needs to make three 'big shifts':

1. Move from hospital to community care
2. Transform from analogue to digital
3. Focus on prevention rather than just treating sickness.

Harjit Sandhu, FODO's CEO, said: "For far too long we have seen people suffer avoidable sight loss due to delays in accessing hospital eye care. Primary eye care has been calling for these three big shifts for more than two decades and the Darzi review highlights the cost of inaction. We welcome the Darzi review and will support the government and NHS to make these three big shifts happen."

Read the full report

Other reactions to the Darzi review

• Victoria Atkins, the shadow secretary of state for health and social care, has accused Labour of political posturing.
• Daisy Cooper, deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats, has said the Darzi report is a "scathing summary" of the last government's management of the NHS. She said her party was committed to shifting care "from hospitals to hight street, and from treatment to prevention". She added that the Government should implement its manifesto commitments as the Darzi report was "long on diagnosis, and short on prescription".