Tag Archives: Department of Health and Social Care

Health and welfare reform – will work, work?

The government has made its stance on health and welfare clear. The overarching narrative underpinning the Department for Work and Pensions’ (DWP’s) green paper on welfare reform, published in March 2025, is ‘good work is good for health and being out of work can worsen health’.

Coupled with the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Wes Streeting’s recent comments that an over-diagnosis of mental health conditions is preventing people from working, it is evident that the government sees work as a key component of the welfare state.

This marks a distinct shift in how work, health and welfare have historically interacted in policymaking. Where once the welfare system was seen primarily as a safety net, it is now being recast as a springboard that supports individuals back into the labour market.

The government recognises that something has shifted in the labour market post-Covid-19. There has been a 45% increase in health-related benefits claimants since 2019-20 and more than 9.3 million people out of work. There are swathes of statistics which demonstrate that Britain’s workforce has not fully recovered from the pandemic and the current level of sickness and absenteeism is unsustainable.

Given the scale of the issue, the government has sought to identify how improving health outcomes might support people into work and enable them to stay there. Ideas such as offering weight loss jabs, dubbed ’jabs for jobs’, were floated at the end of last year. This gives a clear signal that the government is keen to encourage people back into the workplace and is open to non-conventional methods of doing so.

While DWP consults industry and businesses on its planned welfare reforms, an opportunity has arisen for those focused on supporting the government’s vision for work and welfare. Employers should be prepared to play a larger role in supporting the workforce to remain engaged in the labour market. This offers significant opportunities for occupational health providers who can support employers to promote the health and wellbeing of their staff.

Schemes such as mental health and wellbeing programmes will become increasingly common in employment offerings as businesses take on a growing role in a broader, work-led approach to welfare. Occupational health providers who can help fill this gap between welfare, health and long-term employment are well placed to help facilitate the government’s policy objectives.

Reducing economic inactivity is a key priority for the government in its mission to kickstart growth. By implementing supportive workplace schemes and collaborating with private occupational health providers, employers can not only improve individual outcomes but also contribute to broader societal and economic resilience.

The question now for policymakers is exactly how occupational health providers can support businesses to deliver on the government’s objectives for welfare reform. Ministers, civil servants and parliamentarians are keen to understand the art of the possible and how they can work with providers to support workers to remain as active participants in the UK’s workforce.

Please contact Lauren Atkins (lauren.atkins@gkstrategy.com) if you would like to discuss occupational health and the government’s welfare reforms in more detail.

GK Strategy in Conversation with Steve Brine and Richard Meddings

GK Strategy was pleased to host former Chair of NHS England Richard Meddings and former health minister and Chair of the Health and Social Care Committee Steve Brine for an ‘in conversation with’ discussion on Thursday 15 May to examine some of the challenges facing the government, the Department of Health and Social Care and the NHS 10 months into Labour’s term in office.

Meddings and Brine took a deep dive into a range of issues affecting the health and social care sector, exploring the implications for investors and service providers. From funding pressures to the abolition of NHS England, the discussion drew on our speakers’ extensive experience to evaluate the road ahead for the health system and the reforms the government will need to deliver to meet its ambitious policy objectives.

Much of the discussion focused on the NHS and the role of ICBs in a reformed health system following the announcement that NHS England would be abolished. There was agreement that health secretary Wes Streeting had received a tough inheritance, including mounting pressures on the health service and a poor fiscal climate making a significant injection of additional funding unlikely. The panellists highlighted the urgent need to redesign governance frameworks that better meet the demands of a modern health service.

Meddings and Brine spoke in detail about the role of technology in reforming the delivery of healthcare. They agreed there needs to be a steady stream of investment to maximise the increasing role AI will play in improving patient care and delivering efficiency savings within the NHS. The pair emphasised the need for Streeting to secure the ear of Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, who they argued will need to prioritise health targets despite a constrained financial budget.

The two panellists agreed that reducing the elective care backlog and meeting the 18-week referral to treatment target was the key retail offer to voters at the general election and will be the main health priority for the government. This is despite wider initiatives that might have more significant long-term outcomes for the health of the UK’s population. Other short-term priorities for the NHS that were discussed included reducing the number of people in urgent care, increasing access to primary care, and improving cancer detection rates.

Towards the end of the session, the discussion shifted to the upcoming 10-Year Health Plan which will set out the government’s healthcare reforms in detail. Meddings and Brine agreed it is likely to prioritise prevention, the shift from hospital-based to community care and greater digital integration, which were the three ambitions put forward by Labour pre-election. The panellists highlighted that meaningful progress will depend on early intervention strategies and targeted investment, particularly in tackling obesity, cancer and mental health challenges.

For investors and stakeholders, the panel’s message was clear: steady investment in health, coupled with a pragmatic embrace of technology and AI presents a significant opportunity to reshape the delivery of healthcare at a time when demands on the NHS continues to rise.

Health, social care, and life sciences is one of the GK’s core sectors. GK supports a range of businesses and investors to navigate the political, policy and regulatory landscape and help them to realise their commercial objectives. Please get in touch if you would like to discuss the impact of politics and policy on your business or investment decisions.

Unpacking the government’s 2025 mandate to NHS England

At the end of January, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Wes Streeting delivered the government’s 2025 mandate to NHS England. This is a crucial document which sets out the health secretary’s goals for the health service over the next 12 months. It also provides all-important detail about the government’s emerging views on reform of the health and social care system ahead of the much-anticipated 10-Year Health Plan, due to be published later this year – likely in June or July.

The findings of Lord Darzi’s investigation into the health service, commissioned and published in the weeks immediately following Labour’s general election victory, have unsurprisingly been hugely influential in shaping the development of Streeting’s inaugural mandate to NHS England. The health secretary has said the mandate will help address the urgent challenges identified by the Darzi investigation and includes a ‘sharp focus on improving efficiency and productivity.’ Streeting again warns that the ‘culture of routine overspending without consequences’ is over.

At the heart of the 2025 mandate are three key aims: reducing waiting times, improving access to primary care, and improving urgent and emergency care. To reduce waiting times, Streeting has said he is refocusing the NHS on making progress towards an 18-week standard, whereby 92% of patients wait no longer than 18 weeks from referral to treatment, which will work in tandem with the steps set out in the government’s Elective Reform Plan published earlier this year. Patient choice is also at the heart of this agenda. The mandate emphasises the importance of implementing a cultural shift in the NHS to prioritise the patient experience in reducing waiting times, including through the use of the private sector to enable greater patient control over their treatment.

Improving access to primary care is the second key aim of the mandate. This mirrors one of the three strategic shifts the health secretary wants to see as a result of his reform agenda: shifting more treatment from hospitals to communities. Streeting is clear that primary care services are the front door to the health service but for too many people it is not possible to get a timely appointment, if at all. The mandate requires NHS England to enable patients to access general practice more quickly and tackle ‘unwarranted’ variation in services provided by general practice.

Improving urgent and emergency care is the mandate’s third aim. The mandate labels ambulance response times and waiting times in A&E as ‘unacceptable’. While the health secretary recognises that transforming these services will take time, he does state that a start must be made ahead of the government publishing its strategy to improve urgent and emergency care later this year. The mandate therefore includes a specific focus on reducing long wait times to improve patient safety, experience and outcomes.

The ambitions set out by Streeting in his first mandate are laudable. The bleak fiscal situation means the health secretary will have a hawk-like focus on monitoring performance against budgets. This is in recognition that the uptick in funding that the Department of Health and Social Care received at the October budget is unlikely to point to further significant cash injections in the immediate future. For providers, it also underscores the importance of positioning themselves as a high-quality, value for money partner to ICBs and NHS Trusts in delivering strong outcomes for patients.

If you would like to discuss the 2025 NHS mandate in more detail and what it means for businesses in the sector, then please contact Hugo Tuckett (hugo@gkstrategy.com) or Arth Malani (arth@gkstrategy.com).