What exactly is the NHS Fit For The Future, anyway?

Fit For The Future. It's catchy, good bit of repetition in the phrase and it's kind of all over. So, lets get to the point, what does it mean? 

According to NHS England,

 'It's 'a once in a generation opportunity to set the NHS on a path for the future'

According to the Greater Manchester Integrated Care Partnership (GMICP, for short)

Have your say, tell us what is important to you. Tell us how we can make things better.

According to the manifesto of our current Labour government

'Reforms will shift our NHS away from a model geared towards late diagnosis and treatment, to a model where more services are delivered in local communities.'

Does that help any? No? Alright. Well, NHS Fit For The Future is a nationwide push to refit and reform our NHS to suit our needs, using our feedback. A 'national engagement' push to collect feedback to help develop a 10 year plan for these reforms. We're still in the early stages, the information collection stage. Surveys, focus groups, feedback and more. There's an emphasis on local organisations in local communities to ensure local infrastructure becomes refit for local people. Ensuring this 10 Year Plan becomes fit around local people not only is incredibly contusive to our goals, but keeps the local NHS local. They're keeping the people involved in the feedback process so it works for us.

Why do all this? The main kick was from an independent review of the NHS. This feedback 'revealed the scale of the challenge we face', according to NHS England. They found:

'We are diagnosing ill health too late and not doing enough to prevent it in the first place. It is too hard for people to get an appointment, hospitals are overcrowded, NHS workers are overstretched, and costs are escalating'

Not only this, but of course the general consensus of the NHS for years has been it's service is inadequate. The GMICP has found 'satisfaction in the NHS is low'. They've found '84 per cent of people think that the NHS has a funding problem and 48% think the government should increase taxes and spend more on the NHS.'. Even stress from COVID-19 helped this push, revealing need for reform. So essentially, the NHS and government recognised the NHS needs a fix, somewhere, and Fit For The Future is intent on identifying and fixing what needs fixing.

Outside of feedback, practically, what's the plan? Locally, the GMICP intend to focus on helping people live happy, healthy lives. They want to improve and bring great healthcare services, and rethink spending within our local NHS. This can be read here!

So, how else can you get involved? Outside of the NHS site, GMICP have a few ways too. They're running focus groups, surveys like their survey on children's ADHD services, you can sign up for their update list to be updated when you can participate on things and you can attend some of the events too! (Detailed below!)

All in all, Fit For The Future is a locality focused plan to overhaul the NHS for YOU. Join in, be the change you need for you.