Designed for Life

On 19th May I launched Designed for Life, the Assembly Government's new 10-year strategy for health and social care.  With most of the specific undertakings made in Improving Health in Wales met, a new strategic plan is essential to drive the next phase of health and service improvement, taking in issues such as the Review of Health and Social Care advised by Derek Wanless and Health Challenge Wales.

This new document represents the start of the next, and I hope decisive, phase in creating the services we need for the 21st century and sets out -

- a clear 10-year ambition - to cut to the minimum avoidable death, pain, delay, helplessness and waste in Wales
- the start of a transformation in services - moving the focus onto the prevention of problems and to earlier intervention, shifting services out into the community, breaking down artificial barriers at all levels
-   the first of a series of 3-year action plans, based around tough targets, to drive the improvements we need.

Over the coming year in addition we are committed to working with our partners to develop a comprehensive Social Services and social care framework which will complement the approach set out in Designed for Life.  

The first 3-year plan is called Redesigning Care and over the period to March 2008 you will see

- a continued drive to strengthen prevention – especially more action to reduce smoking and help smokers to quit, and more health promotion in schools and the workplace
- action to improve access – including action year-on-year to reduce waits for treatment so that by December 2009 we will achieve a total wait of no more than 26 weeks from GP or dental referral to treatment
- demonstrable improvements in frontline services, especially in relation to cancer, coronary heart disease, chronic disease and long-term illness, mental ill health and services for children and young people and for older people.

We will make the NHS better able to absorb change and keep abreast of latest practice through:

1. much tighter performance management
2. closer attention to research and evaluation and uptake of  best practice
3. more benchmarking to compare performance and stimulate improvement
4. preparing a reconfiguration framework to guide future investment
5. making working in the NHS a more satisfying and productive experience through education, training and workforce redesign  
6. establishing a financial strategy to ensure the best return on investment
7. stronger clinical and professional leadership
8. clinical networks for all the major services
9. a significantly strengthened commissioning process
10. additional information for monitoring and decision-making

The next period 2008-2011 will focus on Higher Standards -

- achieving more clinically focused targets
- tackling wellbeing and health inequalities
- workforce development.

The third framework Ensuring Full Engagement in 2011-2014 will be formulated to take the strategy on from there, with the clear aim that Wales will have services designed for a healthier, longer living population, who are treated quickly and effectively, by services we will be proud of.