Sir Keir Starmer to launch plan for two million more NHS appointments

Published

2 months ago

January 6, 2025

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Sir Keir Starmer will launch his plan to deliver millions more appointments across the NHS and to reduce waiting times to 18 weeks over the next five years.

The prime minister will lay out how greater access to community diagnostic centres (CDCs) will help deliver up to half a million more appointments, alongside 14 new surgical hubs and three expanded existing hubs.

Up to a million appointments could be freed up by giving patients the choice to forego follow-up appointments currently booked by default, the government says.

Overall, the plan will involve a drive to deliver two million extra appointments by the end of next year.

The aim of the reforms is that by the end of March 2026, an extra 450,000 patients will be treated within 18 weeks.

Figures published by NHS England last month showed an estimated 7.54 million treatments were waiting to be carried out at the end of October – the lowest figure since March 2024.

According to the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), the last time the NHS met the target of 92% of patients receiving treatment within 18 weeks was in 2015.

The reforms for England will also see an overhaul of the NHS app to give patients greater choice over where they choose to have their appointment and will also provide greater detail to the patient including their results and waiting times.

The first step in the digital overhaul will be completed by March 2025, when patients at over 85% of acute trusts will be able to view their appointment details via the NHS app, the government said.

They’ll also be able to contact their provider and receive updates, including how long they are likely to wait for treatment.

In the effort to free-up one million appointments, patients will be given more choice over non-essential follow up appointments, while GPs will also be given funding to receive specialist advice from doctors before they make any referrals.

Sir Keir is expected to say: “This government promised change and that is what I am fighting every day to deliver.

“NHS backlogs have ballooned in recent years, leaving millions of patients languishing on waiting lists, often in pain or fear. Lives on hold. Potential unfulfilled.

“This elective reform plan will deliver on our promise to end the backlogs. Millions more appointments. Greater choice and convenience for patients. Staff once again able to give the standard of care they desperately want to.”

The CDCs will be open 12 hours a day and seven days a week wherever possible. Patients will be able to access a broader range of appointments in locations that are more convenient for them and which may speed up the pace of treatment.

The government believes its plan will help it to deliver the equivalent to 40,000 extra appointments a week in its first year – which was one of Sir Keir’s six key pledges.

Chancellor Rachel Reeve pledged £22bn over the next two years to cut NHS waiting times in her October budget, but some in the sector fear a workforce shortage means the prime minister’s ambitions will be hard to achieve.

There have been some concerns that giving patients choice of the location of their treatment may see some hospitals in greater demand than others – but Health Secretary Wes Streeting said this was a “matter of principle”.

“When I was diagnosed with kidney cancer, I was inundated with colleagues in parliament who were asking who my surgeon was, whether I was going to the best place for treatment, whether I was exercising my right to choose in the NHS,” he said.

“Now, it turned out I had one of the best kidney cancer surgeons in the country assigned to me by the NHS, so I was lucky.

“But frankly, someone like my mum as a cleaner should have as much choice and power in the NHS as her son, the health secretary.”

NHS chief executive Amanda Pritchard said the government’s plan was an “ambitious blueprint”.

“The radical reforms in this plan will not only allow us to deliver millions more tests, appointments and operations, but do things differently too – boosting convenience and putting more power in the hands of patients, especially through the NHS app.”

Politics

Apple vs Home Office encryption court battle must be held in public, say MPs

Published

54 mins ago

March 13, 2025

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Apple vs Home Office encryption court battle must be held in public, say MPs

Any court showdown between Apple and the Home Office over customer data must be held in public, MPs have demanded.

It comes after the tech giant announced last month that it would no longer offer UK customers its most advanced, end-to-end security encryption feature for cloud data storage following a row with the government.

The dispute was sparked when ministers reportedly decided to issue Apple with a Technical Capability Notice (TCN) demanding the right to see the user data.

Legally, neither of the parties can publicly confirm the existence of the order.

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However, ComputerWeekly and others have reported that Apple has launched an appeal against the TCN, with an initial hearing set to be heard on Friday before the Investigatory Powers Tribunal at the High Court in London.

A court listing document shows a behind-closed-doors application is due to be held before Lord Justice Singh and Mr Justice Johnson.

Veteran Tory MP and civil rights campaigner Sir David Davis told Sky News: “If the Home Office wants to have effectively unfettered access to the private data of the (innocent) general public, they should explain their case in front of the public.”

Also speaking to Sky News, Liberal Democrat technology spokesperson Victoria Collins said: “The move by the government endangers people here in the UK and sets a dangerous precedent for authoritarian regimes across the globe…

“I’m proud to add my name to the call for the hearing on this crucial issue to be open to the public. People deserve to know what’s happening to their private personal information.”

Reform UK chief whip Lee Anderson said: “If the government wishes to pry on its people, they can make that claim in public. This now puts the security and privacy of the British people at risk.

“The government should have as little involvement in our personal lives as possible. Not in our tweets, not in our text messages, and certainly not with full access to our phones.”

Prior to its removal in the UK, Apple‘s Advanced Data Protection service allowed users the ability to encrypt their data in such a way that no one, not even the tech company, would be able to access it.

Critics fear the use of end-to-end encryption – where third-party access is impossible – could help criminals like paedophiles hide their activity from authorities.

However, providing access to encrypted data, whether to a government or a company, provides potential pathways for third parties such as hackers to access information.

Successive governments have said they want to restrict the use of the function.

Apple has never commented on the TCN, but said in a previous statement: “Enhancing the security of cloud storage with end-to-end encryption is more urgent than ever before.

“Apple remains committed to offering our users the highest level of security for their personal data and are hopeful that we will be able to do so in the future in the United Kingdom.

“As we have said many times before, we have never built a backdoor or master key to any of our products or services and we never will.”

The Home Office declined to comment.

Politics

Ousted Reform MP Rupert Lowe consulting lawyers over libel action, Sky News understands

Published

54 mins ago

March 13, 2025

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Ousted Reform MP Rupert Lowe consulting lawyers over libel action, Sky News understands

Rupert Lowe is consulting lawyers about taking possible libel action against Reform UK, Sky News understands.

The Great Yarmouth MP has accused the party of making “untrue and false allegations” about him after he criticised leader Nigel Farage in the media, sparking a bitter public row.

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A day after the 67-year-old questioned whether Mr Farage could make it as prime minister, Reform UK announced on Friday it had referred him to police and suspended him, alleging he made “verbal threats” against chairman Zia Yousaf.

The Met has launched an investigation into these claims, which Mr Lowe has vehemently denied.

Reform has also claimed it has received complaints from two female employees about serious bullying in Mr Lowe’s constituency office.

The now independent MP has strenuously denied these claims as well, saying the allegations do not relate to him and were made by staff who themselves faced disciplinary action.

Mr Lowe believes he is the victim of a “witch hunt” after speaking out against the party’s leadership in an interview with the Daily Mail that was published last week, in which he challenged Mr Farage’s “messianic” tendencies.

He has not ruled out joining the Conservatives or another political party, while Mr Farage has said there is “no way back” for the suspended MP and accused him of being “out to cause maximum damage” to Reform UK.

The feud could deepen still with Mr Lowe now mulling legal action over claims made about him during the ongoing war of words, it is understood.

The former Southampton FC chairman has accused Mr Farage of spreading “outright lies” after he told GB News that he “knows for a fact” Mr Lowe was informed of a parliamentary investigation into bullying allegations on 29 Feb and gave an interview with the Mail “shortly after that”.

According to the Mail, the interview was held on 25 February – days before Mr Lowe received a letter from Reform’s chief whip Lee Anderson informing him of concerns over his conduct.

The letter, seen by Sky News, was from Reform rather than parliament and says the parliamentary party has determined an independent investigation is the best course of action.

Mr Lowe has urged Mr Farage to “apologise, retract and correct the record,” posting on X: “To suggest I used the interview to deflect from any investigation is factually untrue. I have heard absolutely nothing from parliament about any of this.”

Mr Lowe also denies claims made by Mr Anderson that he has not co-operated with the independent inquiry into his behaviour.

Last night, seven members of his team put their names on a statement coming to Mr Lowe’s defence, saying he is a “good, decent and honest man”, that they have never witnessed “violent or vicious” behaviour and allegations of bullying are “robustly denied by all of us”.

Sky News has contacted Reform UK for comment.

The row poses danger for a party that has its sights on entering government at the next election after a meteoric rise in the polls.

In his interview with the Mail, Mr Lowe said it was “too early to know” if Mr Farage will become prime minister and warned Reform remains a “protest party led by the Messiah” under the Clacton MP.

He also claimed that he was “barely six months into being an MP” himself and “in the betting to be the next prime minister”.

During Mr Farage’s online falling out with Elon Musk, in which he said Reform needed a new leader, Mr Lowe drew praise from the Space X billionaire.

In a move seen as a hint of a new splinter group, another ousted Reform UK politician, former deputy leader Ben Habib, told The Daily Telegraph that Mr Lowe was a “good friend” and he was “constantly in touch with” him.

Politics

Europeans show little interest in digital euro, ECB study reveals

Published

58 mins ago

March 13, 2025

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Europeans show little interest in digital euro, ECB study reveals

European consumers have shown minimal interest in adopting a central bank digital currency (CBDC), raising concerns for the European Central Bank (ECB) as it prepares for a potential rollout of the digital euro.

An ECB working paper on “Consumer attitudes towards a central bank digital currency,” which surveyed about 19,000 respondents across 11 euro-area countries, highlighted significant communication challenges that are discouraging European households from adopting the digital euro.

When asked to hypothetically allocate 10,000 euros (roughly $10,800) across various assets, Europeans allocated only a small portion to the digital euro, having little impact on traditional liquid assets like cash, current accounts or savings accounts.

According to the March 12 ECB working paper, Europeans have a strong preference for existing payment methods and see no real benefit in a new type of payment system amid myriads of offline and online alternatives:

“This finding also suggests that convincing some users of the value added of a CBDC might pose a challenge for policymakers, and more research will certainly be needed in this area.”

The study suggested that while a digital euro could be introduced with minimal disruption to financial stability, its adoption faces significant hurdles due to consumer habits.

Additionally, it stressed the importance of targeted communication to address persistent consumer reluctance toward a digital euro.

The ECB paper found that European consumers were receptive to video-based education and training and concluded that educating the masses with CBDC-related video information could help with the widespread adoption of the digital euro:

“We find evidence that consumers who are shown a short video providing concise and clear communication about the key features of the digital euro are substantially more likely to update their beliefs about this new form of payment, which, in turn, increases their immediate likelihood of adopting it compared to an untreated control group.”

The study’s release comes as US lawmakers intensify their opposition to CBDCs. Speaking at the House Financial Services Committee hearing on March 11, Representative Tom Emmer said Congress should “prioritize pro-stablecoin legislation alongside anti-CBDC legislation.”

Emmer said, “CBDC technology is inherently un-American” and unelected officials should not be allowed to issue it. Emmer also reintroduced the CBDC Anti-Surveillance State Act, which would prevent future US administrations from launching CBDCs.

Meanwhile, Deutsche Börse CEO Stephan Leithner recently called for the establishment of a permanent digital euro, among other reforms, to strengthen the region’s financial autonomy.

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