BGS has joined forces with five other health and care organisations to write an open letter to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care about the Major Conditions Strategy on the closing day of the Department of Health and Social Care’s consultation.
We have sent this letter on behalf of BGS, the National Care Forum, the Royal College of Emergency Medicine, the Royal College of Physicians, the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow and the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh expressing the organisations’ shared concerns about the siloed nature of the strategy and the exclusion of multimorbidity and frailty.
By focusing on six major conditions, the proposed strategy appears to suggest that there is a hierarchy of illness which is not conducive to providing patient-centred, holistic care. Many people, particularly older adults, will have more than one of the conditions named in the proposed strategy, and indeed others that do not make it into the six priorities.
Our organisations are urging the Secretary of State to reconsider the Government’s approach to managing major conditions and instead commit to a holistic, patient-centred approach grounded in the reality of multimorbidity and frailty.