The Advanced Medical Technology Association (AdvaMed), working in the United Kingdom with the Medical Technology Group (MTG) and the Association of British HealthTech Industries (ABHI), commends the recent announcement by the UK Government of aggressive polices to address access to care challenges that have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.
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MTG has consistently highlighted elective care backlogs, access to treatment, and patient waiting times as key issues in need of comprehensive, urgent government action. The need for action is even greater in the aftermath of COVID-19.
AdvaMed President and CEO Scott Whitaker, said: “AdvaMed is focused on improving access to and the quality of patient care around the world, and I am pleased that through our partnerships with the Medical Technology Group and the Association of British HealthTech Industries, we were successful in securing greater investments for UK patients. We welcome this announcement from the UK Government, and we look forward to continuing our work with our partners at home and abroad to achieve our mutual goal to improve public health.”
The UK Government set out measures in its Delivery Plan that includes the following commitments:
- An additional £2 billion in funding for elective care recovery this year (2022);
- An additional £8 billion for elective care recovery over the next three years;
- An additional £6 billion allocated in capital investment for new beds, equipment and technology;
- Action plan to reduce patient waiting lists and improve access to cancer treatment, with benchmarks as follows;
- Mitigate waits of longer than one year by March 2025;
- Mitigate waits of longer than two years by July 2022;
- Mitigate waits of 18 months by 2023 and 64 weeks by March 2024.
- Improvements designed to improve access to cancer care, especially in areas of slow referral.
- NHS will also perform analysis to tackle disparities in wait times to treatment (access to care disparities have been documented and highlighted in our MTG Ration Watch Campaign).
- 75% of patients aimed to be urgently referred within 28 weeks by March 2024.
- Increased use of community diagnostic centres and surgical huts to improve diagnosis and elective capacity;
- Improved support and information for patients: The details released today focused on the launch of a new digital health website called “My Planned Care” that would provide tailored information to patients ahead of surgeries.
According to the UK's health secretary, these measures will allow the NHS to perform at least 9 million extra tests, checks and procedures by 2025 and around 30% more elective activity each year in three years’ time than it was doing before the pandemic.
