CHRISTMAS MESSAGE FROM THE SECRETARY OF STATE

CHRISTMAS MESSAGE FROM THE SECRETARY OF STATE
I am writing to offer my very sincere thanks for your hard work during 2004.
I know you are being challenged to work differently and are responding positively to that challenge. By working together throughout the year in new and more effective ways you have not only raised the standard of healthcare and extended people’s choice of NHS services, you have also continued to speed up access to treatment.
I hope you can see the difference it is making to the most important people - your patients. Real improvements are coming through and patients tell me they appreciate them.
In emergency care, at the beginning of last year around a quarter of patients spent more than four hours in A&E. Now 19 out of 20 patients are seen, diagnosed and treated within four hours and the NHS is on track to make that 49 out of 50 within a few months.
NHS staff know better than anyone that this is the result of hard work in hospitals and in the community. Extra pressure in A&E is transmitted throughout the health and social care system; so reductions in emergency waits can only be achieved when everyone works together.
In primary care there have been some excellent examples of initiatives to prevent hospitalisation of older people and offer care to patients in the community.
Right throughout the NHS and social care system, you have achieved many of the targets set by the NHS Plan ahead of schedule. However, many challenges remain for the immediate future.
During 2004, the Government launched the NHS Improvement Plan, outlining plans to offer greater choice and personalisation of services. This improvement is what people want and it is important that we all work to provide it so that the NHS remains everybody’s first choice for healthcare.
The public health White Paper, Choosing Health, was launched in November. It outlines our proposals for tackling the health inequalities that blight our society and signals a shift of emphasis from treatment of illness to prevention and support for people to live a healthy lifestyle.
So now, as we approach the end of the year and the holiday season, I would like to pay tribute to the year-round dedication to duty and support for colleagues that makes achievements like these possible.
People are rightly proud of the NHS. I would like once more to want to thank you in advance for your commitment to patients and to the values of the NHS. I wish you all a very happy Christmas and New Year and I look forward to working with you on the challenges ahead.
John Reid