Labour’s first week: The key announcements on health you need to know about

It’s been a week since Labour returned to office after 14 years in opposition and, from day one, there have been a flurry of policy announcements, departmental direction shifts and official appointments, as the new administration gets to grips with power. 

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) and the NHS in particular are set for some big changes under Wes Streeting, the reform-focused new Secretary of State for Health and Social Care. 

Here are some of the top announcements from the new Health Secretary and some of the key communication considerations for health tech organisations, private healthcare providers and health charities. 

‘The NHS is broken’ - new policy direction and what you should or should not be saying 

The new official policy of the DHSC is that the NHS is ‘broken’. 

With this policy in place, Streeting plans to launch an independent investigation into the performance of the NHS, aiming to ‘diagnose the problem’ so the government can ‘write the prescription’ and ‘rebuild it anew’. This investigation will inform a forthcoming 10-year plan for the NHS. 

While Streeting has declared tackling waiting lists as his ‘number one priority’, Amanda Pritchard, chief executive of NHS England, has sent an email to NHS leaders outlining three big strategic shifts from the Government for the NHS: ‘fixing the front door’ of the health service by moving more care out of hospital into primary care and community services; better use of technology and data; and improving prevention in a way that boosts the economy, by supporting people to stay well, reducing health inequalities and helping people to stay in work.

The fact that the official policy of the DHSC is that the NHS is ‘broken’ is certainly bold communications and illustrates that it is not shying away from talking about the current challenges facing the NHS. 

Health organisations, whether they are charities or private healthcare providers may want to reflect on to what extent they echo this language in their own communications. Your approach may depend on the type of organisation you are and who you are targeting.

If you’re targeting the DHSC then reflecting the language used by Streeting is likely to be a good move. Our public affairs campaigns for Tinnitus UK and The Sleep Charity both highlighted failures of the existing system and used these, alongside data and human stories that illustrated the impact of those failures, to make the case for change. The opportunity right now is even greater, since the new Government does not carry the can for those failures, having spent so long in opposition.

However, if you are targeting the public as a private healthcare provider or the NHS as a health tech organisation, then you might opt for a more delicate approach to messages about the pressures faced by the NHS and instead work to bring to life the solutions you offer, as our blog on acquiring private healthcare patients discussed. 

The Sky's the limit? - med tech opportunities with the NHS

Speaking at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change’s ‘Future of Britain’ conference, Streeting committed to supporting the Government's growth mission by using the NHS to deliver the ‘Treasury billions of pounds of economic growth’. 

Central to this aspiration is the health tech, med tech and life sciences sector, with the Health Secretary pledging to make the UK a “life sciences and medical technology powerhouse”. 

For the Health Secretary, creating a mutual relationship between the ‘sharpest, brightest minds in UK life sciences and med tech,’ and using the ‘untapped potential’ the NHS offers with a centralised procurement system, would mean that “the sky's the limit in terms of what this country can deliver for patients”.  

On specific health tech and med tech solutions, Streeting referred back to Labour’s manifesto pledges to invest in more diagnostics technology to boost productivity and deliver “massive improvements for patient experience”.   

Streeting’s words on reform are encouraging and could usher in a period of growth for health tech and med tech businesses. 

However, to capitalise on this, organisations need to be speaking the same language as the NHS decision-makers they are targeting and evidencing to them how their solutions could impact in priority areas such as cutting waiting times, patient experiences and outcomes, and productivity.

One of the biggest challenges here is that, due to the scale of opportunity, the communications landscape is likely to get a lot noisier, so it’s going to be harder than ever to stand out. However, with the right strategy, breakthrough campaigns that win NHS sales for your products and services will still be possible. 

See our blog on the four key things health tech and med tech companies can  do to drive NHS sales for a helpful starting point and our campaign for clinical software business Meddbase for an example of how this can be delivered in practice.

New, old faces 

To help drive reform, Streeting is to be joined by a new set of advisors, many from the last Labour Government. 

For example, Alan Millburn, former Health Secretary under Tony Blair, is set to return in a new role. While in office, Millburn was responsible for introducing greater consumer choice for patients and a more prominent role for the private sector in the NHS. Knowing who’s who in Government (and beyond) and what makes them tick can help you to unlock the narratives and activity to achieve your objectives.

Organisations are, ultimately, made up of people working together to make decisions. If you understand who these people are, their role in the process and what their barriers and motivators are, then you are far better equipped to identify the ‘most effective route’ to driving them to behave in the way that you want them to.

Conducting regular stakeholder audits, and crafting messages that will resonate with priority targets - which could include NHS and DHSC teams - is something that your healthcare PR agency could help you with. It’s a service we offer here at Evergreen PR as part of our approach to creating breakthrough campaigns that ignite momentum for health organisations and drive priority audiences - whether that’s the public, NHS decision-makers or government ministers - to take decisive action.

It’s only been the first week of the new Government, and there is plenty of change to get to grips with when it comes to healthcare. 

Change can create risk or opportunity, depending on how you respond to it. How you communicate through this vital period of change will likely play a major part in your future success.

If you are a healthcare business, health tech company or health charity with the capability to improve health and you’re looking for an experienced specialist healthcare PR agency to support you during this time of change, get in touch and let us know what you are looking to achieve and we’ll let you know how we can help. 

About the author 

This blog was written by Chris Hayter, Research and Media Relations Officer at Evergreen PR. Chris has extensive experience of driving forward programmes of activity that generate meaningful impact for charities, royal colleges, health professional bodies, and med-tech and health-tech clients.