Tag: Sajid Javid

The statement made by Sajid Javid, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, on 17 May 2022.

Thank you Gina – not just for your warm introduction, but for everything you do, raising awareness and supporting other people living with dementia. Thank you very much.

And I’m also grateful to the Alzheimer’s Society for bringing us all together this afternoon.

I can’t begin to reflect on what the future holds without acknowledging the challenges of the past two years. Whether it’s the people living with dementia, or those around them who love and care for them, I know dementia is difficult at the best of times. The pandemic made it doubly difficult.

Dementia made some of the steps we needed to take to combat the pandemic a lot harder: like extra handwashing, or socially distancing. Or families and carers, who had very little respite.

But I know it’s the emotional side that’s proved toughest over time. It runs deeper than the smiles and hugs we all missed.

Many of you have tirelessly smashed the taboos around dementia – like the idea dementia is a hidden disease. Lots of you – people like Gina – are proof that people with dementia shouldn’t be hidden away from society.

But sadly, the pandemic saw us all spend more time behind closed doors, physically separated from society and the people that we love.

So I want to say a huge thank you to all of you, for your tremendous courage and resilience in the most extraordinary of circumstances.

When I accepted this role nearly a year ago, I made it my priority to safely remove so many of the restrictions around Covid. Burdens that kept us apart through these difficult times. We’re now leading the world in learning to live with Covid, and I’m proud of how far we’ve come.

Yet even with these brighter days ahead, I know it will take some time for us to recover from this collective trauma. And, of course, the challenges of conditions like dementia haven’t gone away.

Over 900,000 people in the UK are believed to be living with dementia. In 2020, it was the leading cause of death (in England and Wales) after Covid-19.

Yet even when we’re faced with such stark statistics, it’s important to remember how we got here.

Economic growth, medical breakthroughs and vastly improved health and care services have seen life expectancy increase by more than a decade in our lifetimes. It’s one of the great triumphs of the 20th Century. We’re all living longer.

If we’re to get the 21st Century right, we need those extra years to be spent in good health.

And sadly that’s not the case for too many people. By 2025, 1 million people in the UK are expected to have dementia, and is expected to rise to 1.6 million by 2040.

There has been some great progress in recent years.

David Cameron used the rotating chairmanship of the G8 to convene the world’s first G8 dementia summit – which took the dementia challenge onto the global stage. And that passion for global action against dementia has continued in his current role as President of Alzheimer’s Research UK.

And I do want to pay tribute to David, because I remember very well when I was in his Cabinet: he dedicated an entire cabinet session to dementia and invited Alzheimer’s UK to speak to us. They enrolled us all as ‘dementia friends’, and even all these years later now I’m Health and Social Care Secretary, I still reflect on what I learned back then.

The Challenge on Dementia 2020 was another landmark piece of work, which saw a million care workers and a million NHS workers receive dementia awareness training. Over the 5 years of the strategy, the government invested some £420 million on dementia research.

But the pandemic has stemmed the tide of progress. Despite the best efforts of the NHS, it became harder for some people to get a timely diagnosis, because the pandemic made it more difficult to access memory assessment services. I know the Alzheimer’s Society has estimated over 30,000 people didn’t receive a diagnosis because of the pandemic.

Equally, we know from your brilliant research that tens of thousands of people are still missing out on a dementia diagnosis each year because they confuse key symptoms with getting old. As you say: “It’s not called getting old, it’s called getting ill”.

So, while these broader demographic trends, combined with the rising prevalence of dementia, were always going to take us to a crossroads – a moment where we’d have to rethink how we do health and care in this country – the pandemic has brought us to these crossroads a lot more quickly. In fact, we’re there right now.

I think one of the reasons why we haven’t made as much progress on dementia as we would like is because it’s going to take some pretty seismic shifts, both in terms of the architecture of health and care and our own approach.

That’s hard to do. Reform takes time. And you need to take people with you. But it’s a journey we’ve already begun – and it’s a challenge this government is unafraid to take on.

Our plans for Adult Social Care will help improve experiences for people with dementia and their families: with a far more generous means-testing, a cap on life-time costs to increase support and development for our phenomenal workforce.

The new Health and Care Act – which received Royal Assent just a couple of weeks ago – puts Integrated Care Boards and Integrated Care Partnerships at the heart of our system. Joint working and joint budgets will be directed towards caring for people and keeping them well in the first place.

You may also know that we asked Claire Fuller – a GP and Chief Executive of Surrey Heartlands – to conduct a stocktake of how primary care works within the new system. Now this is important, because we know that primary care is where the bulk of prevention can happen – and GPs play a crucial role in referring people with early signs of dementia. So I’m looking forward to hearing Dr Fuller’s views.

We know that joined up care is better for people with dementia and their families. Implementing the proposals in our Integration White Paper will be another important part of what we need to do. The White Paper looks at everything from better data-sharing to multidisciplinary working across health and care, with the ambition of improving the experiences of those who use our vital services.

All of this taken together means our future work on dementia is going to take place in a very different health and care context – one which is much more preventive, professional, and joined up.

Not only that, but the combination of the demographic shifts we all know are coming, the setbacks of Covid-19, and the incredible opportunities afforded to us by pioneering research and new technology, mean we now need to do something dramatically different. We have no other choice but to step up and rise to this moment.

So that’s been the spirit behind our new dementia strategy, which we began developing last summer. I’m grateful to everyone who’s played a part and continues to play a part in bringing it to life, including the Alzheimer’s Society. That work is still ongoing, but today I want to tell you a bit more about what it will look like.

In short, I want it to be more ambitious than anything we’ve done before. To begin with: I want our Dementia Strategy to be a 10-year plan, not just 5. Because we can only get to grips with long-term challenges by thinking long-term.

I’d like us to be as bold as we’ve been with our 10-year plan for cancer. It will be driven by the same four themes behind our reforms in health and care – what I call the ‘four P’s’: prevention, personalisation, performance and people.

Let’s look at prevention for a moment.

It’s estimated that as much as 40 percent of dementia is potentially preventable. 40 percent.

We now know that what’s good for the heart is also good for the brain. Action on high blood pressure, physical inactivity, alcohol, obesity and healthy eating all have a part to play.

So we’re going to be very ambitious on prevention, because I don’t accept that dementia is an inevitable part of ageing. It isn’t.

We’re going to be equally ambitious on research.

We’ve already committed £375 million into research on neurodegenerative diseases over the next five years – and I’ll work across government to boost this further.

It means measuring ourselves against the leading countries globally and being unafraid to find new ways of working. It means being bold about finding new medicines and new treatments. It means being ambitious on new technology, like genomic sequencing and digital biomarkers. And it means continuing to smash taboos – just as you do so brilliantly, every single day.

So I’m really excited about this – and I’m excited to work with all of you get it right. Because it’s no exaggeration to say that our future depends on it.

We’re at the crossroads. All of us here today, we understand the challenges that lie ahead. When it comes to dementia, we know there have never been any quick fixes. We know there aren’t any easy wins.

But we also know that when a visionary plan comes together, with powerful partners and proper funding – and we couple it with care and compassion – that combination can be unbeatable.

That’s going to be the mission – and I’m grateful to have partners like you to share it with. Thank you.

 

The statement made by Sajid Javid, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, in the House of Commons on 12 May 2022.

Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (ME/CFS) affects the lives of children and adults across the country. It can be an incredibly disabling condition with fluctuating symptoms, making it difficult to take part in everyday activities, enjoy a family or social life, access services and engage in work or education, especially for the estimated 25% of people who have severe or very severe symptoms. Whilst there are currently no known cures or treatments for the condition, people with ME/CFS can be supported to manage their symptoms and maximise their quality of life.

Today, on World ME Day, I have two announcements to make to show that the Government are committed to better care and support for people living with ME/CFS and their families.

Firstly, I am pleased to welcome today the publication of the top 10 (plus) research priorities for ME/CFS, published by Action for ME and agreed by the James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnership on ME. This partnership included people with lived experience and clinicians working together to reach a consensus. I want to thank Action for ME and everyone who took part in this important work, recognising that for many this would have taken considerable effort.

To support these research priorities, I will co-chair a roundtable with my Department’s chief scientific adviser, Professor Lucy Chappell, to bring together experts on ME/CFS, including people with lived experience, to discuss what needs to happen next. The chief scientific adviser has asked the UK clinical research collaboration to convene a subgroup on ME/CFS to work with funders, researchers, charities, and people with ME/CFS to drive high-quality applications for research into ME/CFS and support the research community to build capacity and capability in this field. We are committed to funding research into this important area. Funding for high-quality research into ME is available through existing commitments of HM Government to research and development. The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) will work with the research community to respond to the priorities as set out in the Priority Setting Partnership, alongside other funding partners.

Secondly, I am announcing the Government intention to develop a cross-Government delivery plan on ME/CFS for England, aligning with other devolved nations as appropriate. In particular, we are engaging with the Scottish Government to explore areas of potential shared interest and learning, especially in terms of research into ME/CFS.

This will build on the recommendations of the priority setting partnership, the recently updated guideline for ME/CFS from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, and the comprehensive work of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Myalgic Encephalomyelitis to date.

At the heart of the delivery plan will be two core principles: firstly, that we do not know enough about ME/CFS, which must change if we are to improve experiences and outcomes; secondly, we must trust and listen to those with lived experience of ME/CFS.

Following this announcement, officials will work with stakeholders ahead of publishing the delivery plan later this year.

The speech made by Sajid Javid, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, in Blackpool on 18 March 2022.

Thank you for that welcome.

I’m delighted to be with you for the new – and improved – Spring Conference.

Even in the company of old friends,

I know that our hearts and minds are with the people of Ukraine.

We meet in the shadow of a global crisis

as the storm clouds of war darken European soil once more.

It’s difficult to express the sorrow – and the anger – that I feel

hearing reports of mass graves in Mariupol,

and the murder of pregnant women sheltering in maternity hospitals.

Make no mistake:

Vladimir Putin is a war criminal

and a threat to free people everywhere.

He must be held to account.

In the face of such evil we must do what we can

to stand with the people of Ukraine

and support President Zelensky as he defends his home.

I’ve placed my Department and the NHS at his service,

flying in almost two million life-saving medical supplies

and helping deploy an advance party of medical personnel to Romania and Moldova.

The British People have shown extraordinary compassion,

demonstrated by the welcome they gave 21 Ukrainian children with cancer

when they arrived in Birmingham 5 days ago.

It’s that kind of support

and strength of feeling

that prompted a British-Ukrainian man to stop me in my constituency last week

and ask me to tell the Prime Minister that in Ukraine, he’s a hero.

Putin’s disastrous invasion isn’t the only global crisis we’ve faced in recent times.

This is the first time we’ve seen each other at Spring Conference, face-to-face, in 3 years.

It’s because of the choices we’ve made

and the extraordinary efforts of the British people

that we are able to do so with no rules or restrictions –

having resolved together,

as one Nation,

to rely on common sense

and personal responsibility instead.

As we learn to live with Covid

and plan a future beyond the pandemic,

we do so as the most open country in Europe.

The choices we had to make were rarely easy.

We decided to open up last summer in the face of bitter opposition

and Keir Starmer’s campaign to keep our country under lockdown.

This winter we rejected Labour’s demand for new restrictions,

bolstering our defences with a record-breaking booster programme instead.

As we lead the world in learning to live with Covid,

we have a great deal to be proud of

and a strong track record to defend.

That doesn’t mean we can afford to be complacent.

The pandemic has already consumed two years of government.

So this year’s slogan could hardly be more appropriate:

We’ve got to get on with the job.

Blackpool is a suitable place to land that message.

One of my first speeches as Health Secretary was delivered at a Community Centre

not 10 minutes from this hall.

I spoke about my determination to end the disease of disparity

and ensure everyone has the opportunity to live a healthy life.

Covid brought these disparities into sharp focus,

and in many cases made them worse.

We promised real change in 2019.

If we want to win again,

it’s critical the scale of our ambition matches the size of this challenge,

and that the radicalism of our solutions

measures up to the urgency of this moment.

Healthier communities get richer…

and richer communities get healthier,

we cannot level up our economy without levelling up in health.

In this country we’re fortunate to enjoy freedom from catastrophic medical bills,

and the certainty of knowing that the NHS

– and the exceptional people who work there –

will be there for us in a crisis.

Yet even before the pandemic our healthcare system faced long term challenges:

changing demographics and disease,

the injustice of health disparities,

and unsustainable finances.

Our health budget is already larger than the GDP of Greece,

yet this decade is likely to see the fastest pace of ageing of any from the 1960s to the 2060s,

with many more people facing multiple long term conditions.

I remember a 16 year old William Hague telling Tory Party Conference

‘It’s alright for you, half of you won’t be here in 30 or 40 years’ time.’

Well Conference, I’m afraid to say:

It isn’t alright for you, because, with any luck,

most of you will be here in 30 or 40 years’ time!

—

The truth is that we’ve come to a crossroads.

We must choose between endlessly putting in more and more money

and reforming how we do healthcare.

Between increasing waiting lists and rising taxes,

or a healthcare revolution.

I’m sometimes asked if Conservatives have given up on public service reform.

Whether we’ve become some soggy social democratic party.

I’m here to tell you that’s nonsense.

Last week I set out a vision for comprehensive healthcare reform,

building on our Adult Social Care Reform White Paper,

and our plan to tackle the Covid backlog.

The principles underpinning that agenda are simple.

I want to prioritise prevention,

and redesign services around patients.

I want better performance standards,

and freedom for front-line innovators.

I want to put power where it belongs,

back in the hands of patients.

Prevention, personalisation, performance and people.

This is how we will reform the NHS

and bring about the biggest transfer of power and funding in decades.

From an ever-expanding state

to individuals,

their families,

and the community.

That starts with a new emphasis on prevention.

The NHS spends 40 per cent of its budget treating preventable conditions.

We spend too much time on the symptoms of ill health,

And too little time addressing the causes.

There is no small state which isn’t a ‘pre-emptive state’.

I want to shift our healthcare system to a new way of operating,

One that’s about helping the whole population to stay healthy,

not just treating those who show up asking for help.

We need to put power back in the hands of patients and their loved ones.

That’s why I will significantly expand the number of people with personal health budgets,

and drive a radical acceleration in the use of personalised care.

I will introduce a new Right to Choose for long-waiters

because I’m interested in choice for all

– not just the privileged few.

Finally, any reform agenda requires a relentless focus on performance.

When it comes to delivering affordable drugs,

Or accessible care,

the NHS ranks amongst the best in the world.

In areas like cancer survival rates

and cardiovascular disease

we know the NHS must do better.

That’s why I’m committed to improving leadership and management in the NHS and social care,

starting with General Sir Gordon Messenger’s Review,

and why later this year I will launch a new Mental Health Plan,

a new Digital Health and Care Plan,

and a new 10 Year Cancer Plan.

We have come so far as a country,

now the freest in Europe.

We will always be the party of opening things up,

not closing things down.

But we have so much more to do.

It’s our mission to deliver recovery and reform,

with determination and purpose.

So let’s go forward together.

Let’s deliver for the British people.

Let’s get on with the job.