Therese Coffey

2022 - 9 - 22

Post cover — Image courtesy of "The Week UK"

Thérèse Coffey sets out plan to tackle struggling NHS (The Week UK)

Health secretary will pledge to make it easier to get a GP appointment but doctors are sceptical.

The “real test of her announcement will be whether she looks at the long-term reforms that could break the cycle of long waits, burned out staff and declining standards”, he said. Professor Martin Marshall, the RCGP chair, told On hearing the plan, GP leaders said that promises of faster appointments were “not a plan” and did nothing to address a chronic shortage of doctors.

GP appointments: New health secretary makes same-day pledge (BBC News)

Health Secretary Thérèse Coffey will make the pledge as she unveils her NHS plan for this winter and next. GPs will be able to take on extra staff, including ...

It was a horrible experience." Prof Martin Marshall, of the Royal College of GPs, said the announcement on GPs did not amount to a proper plan and would have a "minimal impact", accusing ministers of "lumbering a struggling service with more expectations" without the means to achieve them. Our Plan for Patients will also detail the support the hospital system will receive for ambulances and A&E as well as to tackle the backlog in routine treatments. But he adds: "It was such a struggle - I had to push and push to be seen. She is expected to say: "I will put a laser-like focus on the needs of patients, making their priorities my priorities and being a champion for them on issues that affect them most." The government is promising to improve access to GPs, including same-day appointments for those that need them, as part of a new plan in England.

Thérèse Coffey announces NHS plans for winter – video (The Guardian)

Health secretary makes statement to parliament on plans to free up hospital beds and bring down patient waiting times.

Therese Coffey denies being 'part-time' Health Secretary (North Wales Pioneer)

The key ally of Liz Truss is the Deputy Prime Minister as well as the Health and Social Care Secretary.

“I’m here to support the Prime Minister deliver on what she set out to the Conservative Party membership and to the country during the summer.” But she insisted the NHS plan being set out on Thursday showed she was focused on her job as Health and Social Care Secretary. Ms Coffey has her own office in No 10 and plays a key role at the heart of the new Prime Minister’s administration.

Who is Therese Coffey? Deputy Prime Minister's age and career ... (Metro)

Therese Coffey has become Britain's first female Deputy Prime Minister alongside the role of Secretary of Health.

[Theresa May](https://metro.co.uk/tag/theresa-may/), and when [Boris Johnson](https://metro.co.uk/tag/boris-johnson/) became Prime Minister in July 2019, Coffey was promoted to Minister of State. [resignation of Amber Rudd in 2019](https://metro.co.uk/2019/09/07/amber-rudd-quits-cabinet-conservative-party-10704499/), Therese joined the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, retaining her position in Johnson’s 2020 cabinet reshuffle. [Liz Truss says she will ‘lead new Britain for new era’ against Putin](https://metro.co.uk/2022/09/22/liz-truss-says-she-will-lead-new-britain-for-new-era-against-putin-17428763/?ico=more_text_links) [Therese Coffey’s Dr Dre alarm awkwardly interrupts her first interview as health secretary](https://metro.co.uk/2022/09/07/dr-dre-interrupts-therese-coffeys-first-interview-as-health-secretary-17315415/?ico=more_text_links) [main role](https://metro.co.uk/2022/09/07/who-is-the-deputy-prime-minister-and-do-they-lead-if-the-pm-resigns-17314860/) is to stand in at Prime Minister’s Questions (PMQs), chair the cabinet when the Prime Minister is absent, or hold important meetings. [Liverpool ](https://metro.co.uk/tag/liverpool/)and attended St Mary’s College and St Edward’s College in the city. This year, she was campaign manager for Liz Truss in the Parliamentary stages of the 2022 Conservative Party leadership election, and she remained in a campaign role in the members’ vote stage of the election. [Liz Truss](https://metro.co.uk/tag/liz-truss/?ico=auto_link_news_P1_LNK1) as she [won the Conservative leadership race](https://metro.co.uk/2022/09/05/liz-truss-announced-as-uks-next-prime-minister-and-she-will-start-tomorrow-17277642/) to Number 10. [Secretary of Health](https://metro.co.uk/2022/09/22/health-secretary-says-two-week-wait-to-see-gp-will-be-the-maximum-17427307/), a position she has said she is ‘honoured’ to take. [journey to office](https://metro.co.uk/2022/09/07/dr-dre-interrupts-therese-coffeys-first-interview-as-health-secretary-17315415/) has been colourful. [ reshuffling her cabinet](https://metro.co.uk/2022/09/07/liz-truss-new-prime-ministers-cabinet-meets-for-first-time-17314859/), appointing MPs to some of [Britain’s most important positions](https://metro.co.uk/2022/09/05/key-issues-facing-new-prime-minister-liz-truss-17283075/) when it comes to running the country. [Therese Coffey](https://metro.co.uk/tag/therese-coffey/), who became the first woman to act as Deputy Prime Minister.

Health Secretary Thérèse Coffey Pledges Patients Are Her 'Top ... (PoliticsHome.com)

New Health Secretary Therese Coffey has set out her "expectation" that NHS patients will be able to see a GP within two weeks. She will make a statem...

While addition GP resources are not expected, the government will change rules to allow pharmacists to prescribe certain medications, freeing up doctors’ time. Pushed on whether the two weeks was “a target” or “an ambition”, Coffey added: “ It's clearly an expectation that I'm setting out on behalf of patients. “Patients are waiting longer than ever before in A&E, stroke and heart attack victims waiting an hour for an ambulance, 378,000 patients waiting more than a year for an operation, and that was the summer," he continued. She also promised “more people on the front line” and to “maximise the use of the independent sector to provide even more treatment for patients,” to help tackle the backlog, and announced a £500 million Adult Social Care Discharge Fund for this winter to help with the movement of patients from hospitals into more appropriate care settings. However, opposition parties have accused ministers of underfunding the health service and being “out of ideas” and “out of a clue of the scale of the challenge” facing the NHS. She said that patients are her “top priority” in a "national endeavour" to help tackle issues with ambulances, backlogs, care and doctors and dentists – styled as, "ABCD" – in a new plan to help the NHS through the winter.

Who's to blame for 12 years' desecration of our NHS? Doctors, says ... (The Guardian)

Yet another new health secretary has arrived with all kinds of whizzo ideas, says the Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee.

[great majority](https://www.health.org.uk/publications/public-attitudes-to-the-nhs) of the public that steadfastly supports the NHS founding principle. They have no chance – nor real intent – of repairing it before an election when the state of the NHS will stand as a miserable symbol for all the rest of the ruination they have brought down on the country. This time, though, the Tories have good reason to fear it will be a huge contributor to their loss of the next election. But she will avoid looking at the UK’s “unwarranted variation” in [OECD health spending](https://data.oecd.org/healthres/health-spending.htm), with fewer doctors, nurses and beds per capita than similar countries. For example, Tory politicians relish pointing to lower health outcomes in Wales (Labour-run), without admitting Wales has a population with the same profile in old age, poverty, sickness and fragility as north-east England, which has similar results. Refusing to accept that funding and workforce are the problem, they blame staff, further demoralising exhausted doctors and nurses quitting early in alarming numbers. Why can’t all the NHS be as good as the best? What should a Tory health secretary do when facing the result of 12 years of the most severe underfunding of the NHS ever, by her own governments? Coffey threatens to name and shame practices with long waits for appointments, but GPs need “protecting not punishing”, says the Royal College of GPs president, Clare Gerada. Her “ [ABCD](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/sep/21/tory-nhs-plan-will-not-fix-shortage-of-doctors-and-nurses-says-wes-streeting)” mentions all the worst problems: ambulances, the backlog of operations, the social care crisis and doctors and dentists (nurses left out). [broke their 2019 manifesto promise](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/nov/02/no-10-set-to-break-promise-of-6000-more-gps-in-england-sajid-javid-says) of 6,000 extra GPs and, there are now 1,850 fewer fully qualified full-time GPs than in 2015, with 16% more patients per GP, according to Prof Martin Marshall, chair of the Royal College of GPs. [another plan](https://www.gov.uk/government/news/health-and-social-care-secretary-to-set-out-new-plan-for-patients-and-call-on-public-to-play-a-part-in-national-endeavour) from yet another new health secretary, the fifth in five years.

What is in Thérèse Coffey's new NHS plan? (The Guardian)

Key details from the launch of 'our plan for patients' by the health and social care secretary.

Wes Streeting, the shadow health secretary, had asked her to confirm “that her response to the crisis in the NHS won’t be to lower standards for patients”. Although billed as “new”, the fund is essentially a revamping of the “discharge to assess” fund. Tim Oliver, the chair of the County Councils Network of 36 mainly Conservative-run local authorities, said the fund was “a step in the right direction”. The move that got the most attention was her “expectation” that anyone seeking a GP appointment should get one within two weeks – currently 15% of patients do not – and that family doctors need to give the sickest patients on-the-day slots. [to launch “our plan for patients”](https://www.theguardian.com/society/2022/sep/22/health-secretary-therese-coffey-fund-discharge-nhs-patients). To create a £500m “adult social care discharge fund”.

Therese Coffey

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