Launch of improvement plan for Sussex to mark NHS 75th anniversary

Health and care organisations have set out the immediate and long-term improvements that will be made over the next five years to bring the greatest benefits for local people.

Services across the whole country are under increasing pressure due to a number of reasons, including our growing and ageing population, the waiting list backlog that grew during the Covid pandemic, and limited numbers of staff to do everything that needs to be done. The Sussex plan aims to address these issues in the short and to make improvements in the long-term through existing and new initiatives and ways of working.

As part of the plan, over the coming year immediate improvements will take place to:

· Improve access to GP and dental services.

· Improve response times to 999 calls and reducing A&E waiting times so the sickest patients get the emergency care they need as quickly as possible.

· Reduce waiting lists for diagnostics and planned operations.

· Speed up discharge from hospitals.

· Improve care for those facing mental health crisis and access to support for children and young people.

In addition to these immediate actions, new ways of working will be developed to help bring about long-term improvement to services and to help people to live healthier. These include:

· Creating teams of professionals across different health and care organisations working as ‘integrated community teams’ to allow services and organisations to work in a more joined-up way to better meet the needs of local communities.

· Initiatives to grow and develop the health and care workforce to help them have the support and skills needed, and to attract new people into health and care jobs.

· Improving the use of digital technology and information to join-up services and help people access care more easily.

To support the improvements taking place, work will also be undertaken to reduce the differences in health for those who are most disadvantaged; strengthen clinical leadership across services; get best use of the finances available; and improve services and support for those with mental health issues, learning disabilities and autism.

All the work taking place build on, and will support, the continued delivery of the Health and Wellbeing Strategies we have in place across Brighton and Hove, East Sussex, and West Sussex, which focus on the local priorities for improving health and wellbeing across our diverse populations.

NHS Sussex Chair and Chair of the Sussex Health and Care Assembly Stephen Lightfoot said: “The NHS 75th anniversary is an opportunity to celebrate all that is good in the NHS and it is important we recognise the life-saving, life-altering and life-affirming work that takes place every minute of the day across health and care, thanks to the hard work, dedication and expertise of staff.

“However, we also need to focus on what we need to do to improve health and care for the future and address the many challenges we face. We know our staff are working under extreme pressure too often and local people are not always getting the care, treatment and support they need when they need it. Our plan for our population represents our opportunity to tackle the issues we face and make improvements in the short and long-term our local communities and our workforce.”

NHS Sussex Chief Executive Adam Doyle said: “We have a great opportunity now across health and care as this is the first time we have had a long-term plan that sets out how we will make improvements across the system. We have the collective commitment across multiple partners to work differently together to take short-term and long-term action to bring about better access, experience and outcomes for our population.

“We will be doing this in a realistic way, using the resources we have available, but we will be able to achieve the ambition we have set out if we can work together as a system to harness our collective effort, energy and expertise.”