MDDUS responds to 10-year plan for health in England

Chris Kenny, Chief Executive of the medical defence organisation MDDUS, said: “Now we have it to hand, it’s clear that despite spanning nearly 150 pages the report fails to include a robust, transparent workforce model or to explain how its bold vision will be delivered.

“We welcome its acknowledgement that clinician wellbeing is essential. We support the commitments on mental health support, tackling violence against doctors and dentists and improving apparently small but actually vital aspects of working life such as access to nutritious food on night shifts.

“However, we are deeply concerned by proposals to fold the Health Services Safety Investigations Body (HSSIB) into a reformed CQC.

“HSSIB’s 'safe space' protections are vital in allowing doctors to report and learn from errors without fear. Weakening its independence now risks undermining both patient safety and clinicians’ confidence to speak up when things go wrong.

“Worryingly, the plan also anticipates fewer NHS staff by 2035 than current workforce projections suggest, with ministers relying heavily on AI tools and automation to fill the gap. If these assumptions do not hold, the NHS could face an even more serious staffing crisis. In dentistry, that could be exacerbated by the failure to reform the antiquated dental regulatory framework, a key cause of poor retention in dentistry as a whole.

“In short, this plan appears heavy on rhetoric and potentially light on delivery. Ambition alone is not enough – we need clarity, realism and a workforce strategy that meets the scale of the challenge.

“Wes Streeting said today he will deliver that detail in the Autumn, so the real deal behind this plan unfortunately remains something of an enigma.”

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