RUSHES: Sajid Javid speech on healthcare reform at the Royal College of Physicians

Sajid Javid speech on healthcare reform at the Royal College of Physicians; *Part 9 of 20* ENGLAND: London: Royal College of Physicians: INT Sajid Javid MP (Health Secretary) speech SOT. - I’ve talked about prevention. Now I want to focus on the second of the ‘three P’s’: personalisation. The ideas behind personalisation go all the way back to Hippocrates, but in recent years, personalisation has taken on a new life: from making use of our new ‘family hub’ service, to taking a test at home for Covid-19 and then uploading the result. We know that when healthcare is personalised – built around the person and their family – it works better. It’s not just more efficient, it’s more effective too: with more diseases prevented and better medical interventions. Let me share with you a short story from my own life. When I was around five, my Dad was a smoker – a lot more people were back then. I remember standing at the top of the staircase overhearing my Mum confront him, saying: “If you die, your boys won’t have a Dad”. He never smoked again. That kind of intervention is more powerful than most of us can imagine. Although he still died many years later of colon cancer, I do wonder if, by stopping smoking in his early 30’s, it gave us many more time together as a family. In my party conference speech back in October, I talked about how we’ve got to recognise the power of families to make the difference when it comes to healthcare. Whether it’s stopping drug addiction or dealing with depression, there’s no more powerful motivating force than family. And again, there’s no small state without strong families. I’ve talked about prevention and what government can do - but we as citizens need more power to determine our own health. We need a decisive shift from the state to individuals, families and communities. I want to expand on that today – and set out some of the ways I want to transform the quality of healthcare and put power in the hands of patients an...