CENTRAL Devon MP Mel Stride has praised the Government’s 10-year plan for the NHS which was developed by those working in the NHS and unveiled on Monday, January 7.

The publication of the plan follows the announcement last year that the NHS would receive £20.5 billion extra by 2023-24.

In return, the NHS was asked to develop a plan for how to spend this additional funding to transform patient care and make sure every penny of taxpayers’ money is spent wisely.

At the heart of the plan is a focus on prevention – keeping people out of hospital by improving their health and investing £4.5 billion in primary and community care – supporting GPs, health visitors and community nurses.

Within the main priorities are improvements in maternity care, avoiding unnecessary hospital admissions among older people, improving outcomes for all major conditions and increasing the NHS workforce.

There will also be more use of digital technologies to improve services and a greater effort to make back office savings to spend more on frontline services.

Commenting, Mr Stride said: “This long-term plan for the NHS has been put together by NHS England and developed in partnership by those who know the NHS best with input from frontline staff as well as patients.

“I agree that the most effective way to alleviate demand on our hospitals is to make sure that nobody is ending up in hospital that doesn’t need to be there.

“This could be someone who could have seen their GP instead of going to Accident and Emergency or an older person who could be cared for in their own home – which is what almost every older person I speak to in my constituency would like.

“The Government was right to commit to a major increase in health spending in the autumn, but we needed a clear plan on how best to spend this additional £20billion and it is very good to see this outlined so coherently today.”