Health and social care: the ideas
Children born today will be taking their first steps into adulthood in 2040. What will life in the UK be like for them, according to current trajectories? What policy options do we have now that can influence or change that trajectory for the better?
When we started UK 2040 Options in June 2023, a year out from the General Election, we asked health and social care experts two simple questions: what are the greatest issues facing the health and social care systems; and what interventions might best help to improve them by 2040? As health is devolved, we asked experts to consider these issues in relation to England.
The results highlighted the myriad of challenges that are facing England’s health and adult social care systems and sparked a year-long dialogue with experts, emerging thinkers and practitioners about both where there is established consensus on the issues and way forward, and where there is fertile ground for new ideas.
With The Health Foundation, we assessed the fundamental facts that underpin the NHS and adult social care systems. We then highlighted the big choices that the new UK Government faces as a result. This report focuses on some of the interesting, innovative policy ideas that emerged.
It is well established that between now and 2040 the UK Government will need to grapple with the funding, structures and big workforce challenges that the NHS and social care systems face. Others, such as The King’s Fund, The Health Foundation, and Nuffield Trust are looking at those questions in detail. The ideas set out here are intended as additive – highlighting some policy ideas that, in a new, mission-driven government, have the potential to improve outcomes, regardless of the path taken on the big structural and funding questions. They’re not a set of recommendations, and nor do they represent a ‘strategy’ to ‘fix’ the NHS, but they should serve as food for thought for policymakers looking to innovate.
The eight ideas that follow in this report:
- Overhaul the policy approach to obesity: tackling poor diets upstream by introducing mandatory health targets for supermarkets
- Tackle alcohol-related harm head-on: through the introduction of minimum unit pricing
- Reform the Treasury’s fiscal framework to prioritise prevention: introducing a new category of public spending for prevention
- Make NHS staff wellbeing a strategic priority: improving data collection and transparency, testing wellbeing interventions, and scaling the ones that work
- Pave the way for an AI health revolution: standardising patient records, and establishing a new National Data Trust
- Ramp up the use of digital mental health services: through expanding access to, and effectiveness of, internet-delivered cognitive behavioural therapy (eCBT) and other digital tools
- Stem rising demand in social care by slowing ageing: through preventing falls and improving physical activity in older people
- Proactive and streamlined support for unpaid carers: through targets and incentives
Ideas to propel us to a better 2040
By Alexandra Burns
Over the last few years, the public debate about politics and policy has often felt bleak. With public services struggling to meet demand, a fragile economy and an increasingly unstable world, it’s easy to see why optimism about the future has been lacking.
But what would it take to change course?
UK 2040 Options has worked with around 300 experts in an effort to lift our collective heads from the crisis and look forward. A child born today will become an adult in the early 2040s. We’ve examined what the country will look like for them if things stay the same, and what we could do now to alter that trajectory for the better.
First, we assessed the fundamental facts that underpin each of the topics. We then highlighted the big choices that the Government faces as a result. These reports now focus on policy ideas. In doing so, they aim to bring to the fore some of the interesting and potentially impactful policy ideas that experts have suggested to us over the past year.
Across areas critical to the country’s future – economic growth, health, education and the transition to net zero – we found a high degree of consensus about both the issues and the big, difficult choices facing the new Government. But we found hope and new, innovative ideas too. The four reports we’re publishing today aim to be honest about the challenges and bold about the solutions.
From the introduction of safe phones for under-16s to setting supermarkets targets for the healthiness of the food they sell, from harnessing AI to reduce labour market inactivity to decarbonising homes street by street – the ideas aren’t lacking. Now is the time to debate them and their trade-offs honestly. Our hope is that they provide food for thought for those engaged in designing the country’s future.
Continue the conversation at Policy Live on 12 September – registration is open now.