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Hospitals in England that deliver the fastest improvements in care waiting times 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 initiative aims to encourage The NHS leaders to achieve the goal that 92 percent of patients wait no more than 18 weeks to begin non-urgent treatment after being referred to a consultant.
Last month the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer he injected new urgency into the standard, first set by Tony Blair two decades ago, when he called it one of the six “rare events” of his administration and vowed it would be met by the end of the current parliament.
But the yardstick has not been implemented for almost 10 years, as difficulties, epidemics and increased demand from the elderly and growing population are added to the problems of the health service.
Ahead of Monday's announcement, health department officials told the Financial Times that additional funding for major projects – such as new high-tech scanners or much-needed ward maintenance – will be available to NHS trusts that have made significant improvements to their 18-week attendance. referral to a medical facility.
Performance will be measured by the percentage of patients seen during that time, they said.
The lure of additional funding will be felt in a service that has long been lagging behind countries with comparable amounts invested in infrastructure.
In a report commissioned by the government last year, Lord Ara Darzi, a surgeon and former health minister, identified A capital shortfall of around £37bn.
Streeting said other hospital trusts had already led the way, running surgeries in “new and productive ways. This government will support them with new investment money, and allow them to move on from failure.”
Trusts treating more patients should be paid more for their work “and good performance should be rewarded to encourage good performance – that's how we're going to manage waiting times”, he added.
The proposal will form part of a comprehensive reform plan, to be published on Monday by the government and the NHS, which will set out how the health service will return to normal in 18 weeks.
The drive is supported by the £25.6bn announced for the NHS in the October Budget. Ministers say the extra money will help fund an extra 2mn jobs a year, but health leaders have warned “Confusion” about whether to prioritize hitting performance targets or increasing acceptance.
At the end of October, the most recent figures available, patients were waiting for 7.54mn procedures and appointments. About 40 percent of people were waiting longer than 18 weeks.
Pressure on the NHS was highlighted by data on Friday which showed a sharp increase in cases of fever during the holidays. More than 5,000 patients were hospitalized 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 groups after The Street said on Friday that a new commission studying how to improve social care would not make its final report until 2028.
It is more than a quarter of a century since the release of the first many questions on social care, which has long been critical of the NHS but was not mentioned during the 2024 general election.