The Royal College of Podiatry responds to the government's 10-year plan for the NHS
The RCPod welcomes large parts of the plan - particularly local delivery of care, increased digitisation and a greater focus on prevention - but it encourages the government to truly harness podiatry’s unique and untapped potential to help achieve it.
Today (Thursday 3 July) saw the long-awaited publication of the government’s 10-year plan for the NHS.
The Royal College of Podiatry (RCPod) broadly welcomes the moves towards more local delivery of healthcare, a greater focus on prevention, and greater use of digitisation to enhance care.
The plan commits the NHS to a conversation with trade unions to develop a new employment contract across the NHS; the RCPod looks forward to being part of that and the development of a workforce plan that delivers these aspirations.
The Prime Minister’s commitment to ending the ‘sticking plaster culture’ of the NHS is welcomed and we look forward to playing a leading role in this. The podiatry profession (both in the NHS and in the independent sector) is well placed to deliver the preventative agenda. However, as NHS England has described podiatry as a profession ‘at high risk of failure’, we also need greater emphasis on the growth of podiatry. For example, there are 5.6 million people living with diabetes in the UK – the role that podiatrists could play in preventing complications for this group, and saving millions, would be more achievable with a workforce that was large enough to ensure that prevention was at the heart of services.
The RCPod will now spend some time looking at the plan in full detail before commenting further.
Speaking about the plan, the RCPod’s CEO and General Secretary, Jane Pritchard, said:
“We welcome the ambition of this plan and look forward to seeing the detail around the structural changes to ensure primary, secondary and tertiary prevention is deliverable to affect population health.
“We will work to ensure that podiatry has a strong voice in the implementation of the plan. The upcoming launch of national campaigns to promote careers and public awareness of podiatry will demonstrate our ambition to ensure that our profession is at the heart of the push to keep people healthy, mobile, and active.”
The 10-year plan is for England only. The RCPod welcomes plans for the future of healthcare delivery from the governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.