17.12.18
Delayed NHS long-term plan confirmed for January
The BBC’s health editor Hugh Pym has received confirmation that the NHS long-term plan will now not be published until January.
The plan was commissioned alongside prime minister Theresa May’s announcement of the NHS funding settlement and was due to be published this year, but the BBC has now received confirmation that it will not be published until next year.
With Parliament at a deadlock over the prime minister’s proposed Brexit deal, the political turmoil is preventing the plan from being published.
Sources told the Guardian that tensions between NHS England boss Simon Stevens and government ministers over how ambitious the plan will be were also holding up its publication.
The long-term plan is understood to not include social care, which former health secretary Jeremy Hunt said will receive its own separate plan – despite leaders consistently arguing that the NHS strategy should include it.
Top image: Stefan Rousseau, PA Wire
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