Interministerial Group for Health and Social Care communiqué, 11 December 2024
Published 7 March 2025
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First meeting of the Interministerial Group for Health and Social Care, 11 December 2024
Location: online.
Attendees
Chair: Neil Gray, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, Scottish Government
Other ministers in attendance:
- Jeremy Miles, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, Welsh Government
- Mike Nesbitt, Minister of Health, Northern Ireland Executive
- Wes Streeting, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, UK Government
- Andrew Gwynne, Parliamentary Under-Secretary (now former Parliamentary Under-Secretary) for Prevention and Public Health, UK Government
What was discussed
All ministers welcomed this first official meeting of the Interministerial Group for Health and Social Care, and the opportunities that good intergovernmental relationships offer for meaningful collaboration to drive reform and tackle common challenges in our healthcare systems.
The group discussed advances in scientific and technological innovations for our health and care systems and their potential to:
- lower projected demand
- increase system productivity
- reduce costs
- improve patient outcomes
Officials were tasked with developing proposals for increased 4-nation collaboration on their development, testing and adoption for consideration by the interministerial group (IMG) in 6 months’ time, with an interim update in 3 months.
There followed a discussion on healthcare reform, where the common problems across the 4 nations were recognised. The UK Secretary of State provided an overview of the UK government’s health mission and 10 Year Health Plan for the NHS in England, and agreed to share learning from the associated deliberative engagement with NHS England staff, patients and civil society. Ministers from Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales also committed to sharing their own learning and reform proposals, including shifting the balance of care, utilising innovation and moving to a more preventative system.
All parties agreed that regular, systematic and ongoing official-level engagement would take place from January 2025 to take forward these commitments. Issues for consideration included the shift to prevention, with a particular focus on:
- obesity and health inequalities
- narratives on population health
- data standards
- vaccine hesitancy
It was also agreed that future meetings of the IMG would have a standing agenda item on healthcare reform.
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, UK government, briefly noted one aspect of healthcare reform - the shift to a community and neighbourhood model - that would provide citizens with local services that reflect specific community needs (being called the ‘Neighbourhood Health Service’ in England).
A final discussion noted some topics for joint working across the 4 nations, and for possible discussion at future IMG meetings:
- commonalities in mental health strategies
- maternity policy
- the critical importance of embedding the devolved governments in strategic planning for future pandemics
Mental health was agreed as an agenda item for the next IMG meeting.