PRESS RELEASE : Health and Social Care Secretary visits Berkshire hospital [July 2024]

The press release issued by the Department of Health and Social Care on 19 July 2024.

Secretary of State Wes Streeting spoke to staff and patients before meeting regional health leaders.

• Wes Streeting met staff and patients on visit to Heatherwood Hospital, Ascot
• The site is helping tackle backlogs of planned operations with dedicated surgical services
• Secretary of State also met with regional health leaders at ‘town hall’ event

Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting underlined his mission to cut NHS waiting lists as he visited staff and patients at Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust’s Heatherwood Hospital in Ascot today (19 July 2024).

Mr Streeting toured the Berkshire hospital to see first hand how its work is helping patients get quicker access to planned surgery, cutting local waiting lists.

The Health and Social Care Secretary also hosted a town hall meeting with health representatives from across the region to discuss the issues facing services. It comes after he ordered an independent investigation into the NHS last week, pledging to be honest about the state of the health service and serious about fixing it.

Heatherwood Hospital exclusively performs planned surgery, diagnostics and outpatients’ services mainly focusing on high volume, low complexity surgery such as orthopaedics, ophthalmology, gynaecology and urology. The hub also performs surgery for cancer and plans to expand the specialties performed in its theatres.

It is set up to ensure patients have shorter waits for surgery, are more likely to be able to go home on the same day, and have a better patient experience – a model Mr Streeting wants to see emulated across the country.

Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Wes Streeting, said:

The NHS is broken. Millions of patients are waiting too long for treatment, often in pain and discomfort.

But services like those I’ve seen today at Heatherwood Hospital show that there are still great things happening in the health service. My job as Health Secretary is to take the best of the NHS to the rest of the NHS. I’m talking to patients, frontline staff, and NHS leaders about what needs to change.

We are determined to turn around the NHS so it can be there for all of us when we need it, once again. The NHS saved my life when I was diagnosed with kidney cancer, and I can’t think of a better way to repay my debt than to help save the NHS.

Caroline Hutton, Interim Chief Executive for Frimley Health NHS Foundation Trust, which runs Heatherwood Hospital, said:

We are very proud of what we have been able to achieve for our patients through new ways of working and innovation using, for example, artificial intelligence (AI), digital patient records and collaboration with health and care partners to provide better care more efficiently.

We were delighted to have the chance to share with the new Secretary of State how our dedicated planned care hospital is enabling us to reduce waiting lists, including maintaining planned surgery and procedures during winter challenges and how we are sharing our learning throughout the NHS as a Getting it Right First Time (GIRFT) surgical elective hub.

Today’s visit comes exactly 2 weeks since Mr Streeting was appointed Health and Social Care Secretary.

In that time, he has:

• met with representatives of the British Medical Association and announced the start of formal negotiations to end strikes
• met with the British Dental Association to discuss contract reform
• ordered an independent investigation into the state of the NHS
• visited a London GP surgery where he pledged to “fix the front door to the NHS”