Opinion article by the Secretary of Health in the Mail on Sunday

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Moments after the Prime Minister called me to ask me to become Secretary of Health and Social Affairs last Saturday night, I spoke to my teenage daughter in the kitchen.

You won’t have much to deal with then, daddy, she said sarcastically.

When I returned to Westminster on Sunday morning I found the largest ferry I have had in any department and completed 5.

I spent the last year working with Harvard University on how governments can learn from this pandemic and be better prepared for future challenges, now I am the one facing so many of these difficult choices.

I feel both the heavy responsibility and the urgency that accompany this work.

My first video call on vaccine progress was scheduled to take place at the same time as the England-Germany game. Everything was going well until JVT (Jonathan Van-Tam, Deputy Chief Medical Officer for England) suddenly took off his headphones because he didn’t want to hear the score before watching a recording of the match.

It was an honor to start the meeting by thanking the team that carried out the deployment, including everyone in the NHS, the Vaccine Working Group and officials in my department.

Amidst endless memos and tons of data, I see 2 immediate challenges. The first is how we restore our freedoms and learn to live with the (coronavirus) COVID-19. The second is to tackle the NHS backlog, something that we know will get worse before it gets better.

We’re on track for July 19, and we need to be honest with people that we can’t eliminate COVID-19.

We also need to be clear that the cases will increase dramatically. I know a lot of people will be cautious about relaxing the restrictions, that’s understandable. But no date we choose will ever come without risk, so we need to take a broad and balanced view. We’re going to have to learn to accept the existence of COVID-19 and find ways to deal with it like we already do with the flu.

The economic arguments for openness are well known, but for me the health arguments are just as compelling. The pandemic has hit some groups disproportionately. The rules we have had to put in place have caused a shocking increase in domestic violence and a terrible impact on the mental health of so many people. All of the progress we have made is due to the sacrifices of the British people and our phenomenal vaccination program. The jabs are working. The latest data from the Office for National Statistics shows that 8 in 10 UK adults have COVID-19 antibodies which help the body fight disease. The implications of this are enormous.

Tragically, the last time we had 28,000 new cases of COVID-19 in one day, we saw around 500 people die every day. As of Friday, we had almost 28,000 cases a day, but 24 times fewer people lost their lives.

There will always be the possibility that we have to deal with dangerous new variants that the vaccine eludes, but I encourage everyone to get vaccinated now if they haven’t already. It is the greatest contribution you can make to this national effort.

We have many other critical health issues that we face. We protected the NHS to make sure it was there for anyone who needed care. The actions we have taken have saved countless lives, but also led to the accumulation of a vast backlog of elective checks, appointments and treatments for all less urgent, but often just as important, health issues. important.

Due to the pandemic, we estimate that around 7 million fewer people than normal have presented for health care. Even if only part of that demand comes back, we will see enormous pressure on the NHS.

To help meet this demand, build a better NHS and clear the backlog, we need to build on the changes we all made during the pandemic, such as using NHS 111 to refer patients to the cadre on more suitable for receiving care, expanding the use of our pharmacies and encouraging more people to use the NHS app.

We must continue to do all of this and more.

Of course, if you are not feeling well, you have to come forward. The NHS is always there for you and now in different ways.

Were putting record levels of funding into the NHS. In March, we committed an additional $ 7 billion, including $ 1 billion to begin tackling the elective backlog and about $ 500 million for mental health services and investment in people.

And brought so many more talented colleagues into the workforce. We have a record number of employees in the NHS, with more than 58,300 more employees in hospital and community health services since March of last year, including more than 5,600 doctors and 10,800 nurses.

Also embracing technology to help staff spend less time on paperwork and more on patients.

It is time to build on the spirit of innovation that we have all embraced and use it for the other challenges we face: from fixing social care definitively and putting it in place on a sustainable basis. , to the fight against the health inequalities that the pandemic has highlighted.

I am determined that we are right.

There is a lot of work to be done, but if we keep the spirit that has guided us through these difficult days, we will have a country that is not only freer, but healthier as well.

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