Wes Streeting’s ‘care plans’ are old news

There is much that is good in today’s NHS elective recovery announcement: changes to incentives for trusts so that they are rewarded for clearing their backlogs faster; a new partnership agreement with the private sector; a proper plan for returning to 92 per cent cent of patients waiting no longer than 18 weeks from referral to treatment by 2029; minimum standards for elective care; and so on. But until we know the government’s overarching plan for reforming the NHS, it’s difficult to make much sense of the piecemeal announcements we are getting before then.

It is not just the failure to reform social care, though, that makes it more difficult to realise all the other planned reforms.

Wes Streeting tried to justify the government’s decision to delay social care reform when he made a statement in the Commons this afternoon, saying ‘there is plenty of blame to go around’ for the failure of the past few decades, before saying ‘it is time for all of us across this House to do things differently’.