The UK Government is to launch a new NHS strategy to tackle major conditions and diseases, including mental illnesses.

Major health conditions include:

• Cancers
• Cardiovascular diseases, including stroke and diabetes
• Chronic respiratory diseases
• Dementia
• Mental ill health
• Musculoskeletal disorders

These major conditions account for around 60% of total disability-adjusted life years in England and are prime contributors to limiting healthy life expectancy.

Steve Barclay, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, announced the policy in the House of Commons on 24 January 2023. He said:

“The health and social care system faces long-term challenges to ensure the public enjoys longer and healthier lives. Currently, in England, 5.4 million people live with cardiovascular disease, around 8.6 million live with chronic respiratory disease and 8.2 million live with mental health issues.

“An increasing number of us live with one or more major conditions. People with diabetes are twice as likely to have depression. Nine in 10 dementia patients have another long-term condition. Half of people with a heart or lung condition have musculoskeletal disorders. 

“Tackling the major conditions that lead to people spending more years in ill health is a significant opportunity to improve the lives of millions of people.”

The strategy is a further development of (and probable replacement for) the NHS Long Term Plan, launched in 2019.

The Plan’s goals were to make sure everyone gets the best start in life, and that the NHS delivers world-class care for major health problems and supports people to age. It aimed to do things differently, prevent illness and tackle health inequalities, back the NHS workforce, make better use of data and digital technology, and get the most out of taxpayers’ investment in the NHS.

Yet, the pandemic and now the cost of living crisis has made these goals even more challenging.

This new Major Conditions Strategy aims to set out a strong and coherent policy agenda to drive forward the Government’s aspiration for a shift to integrated, whole-person care.

Interventions will aim to alleviate pressure on the health system, as well as support the Government’s objective to increase healthy life expectancy and reduce ill health-related labour market inactivity.

The intent is that Major Conditions Strategy and the upcoming NHS Long Term Workforce Plan will work together to set out how the standards patients should expect will be delivered in the short term and over a five-year timeframe.

The Secretary of State explained the rationale for the new strategy:

“This is about shifting our model towards preserving good health, and the early detection and treatment of diseases. We have a proud record of opening new treatment possibilities in the NHS. Diseases that were once a death sentence have become conditions that can be managed over the long term. By harnessing innovation and technology, we are increasingly capable of detecting diseases at an early stage, in some cases before symptoms emerge. Intervening at this point will reduce demand downstream on health and care services.”

“Healthy, fulfilled, independent and longer lives for the people of England will require health and care services, local government, NHS bodies, and others to work ever more closely together. People living in England’s most deprived places live, on average, 19 fewer years in good health than those in the least deprived places. The strategy will set out the supporting and enabling interventions the centre can make to ensure that integrated care systems and the organisations within them maximise the opportunities to tackle clusters of disadvantage in their local areas where they exist, informed by the Hewitt Review. This will include addressing unwarranted variation in outcomes and the care people receive in the context of the recovery from the pandemic.”

This announcement, and the work which is going on behind the scenes to develop the new strategy, looks to be a promising move. It will combine the NHS’ key commitments on mental health, cancer, dementia and health disparities into a single, coordinated, strategy.

Therefore, we are likely to see other plans, such as the Mental Health and Wellbeing Plan and Rare Diseases Plan, rolled into the new strategy.

As health and social care is largely a devolved matter, the Major Conditions Strategy will only directly cover NHS services in England.

Of course, strategies alone will not change care outcomes. All too often we’ve seen NHS policies lose momentum and fall out of favour, without delivering what they promised.

Delivering on the objectives of the strategy will require a concerted effort from the Government and the NHS working in tandem, alongside social care, patient representatives, industry and partners across the health and care system.

The Government will publish an interim report on the strategy in Summer 2023.

Read the full text of the Government announcement here (opens in new window). 

Join the Institute of Government & Public Policy at our NHS Long Term Plan Conference and Exhibition on Tuesday 21 March to learn more about the Government’s latest plans for the NHS.