A plan to tackle six major health conditions has been put on pause by the new Government, a health minister has confirmed.

The previous Government wanted to set out a strategy to tackle the conditions contributing to England’s ‘burden of disease’, with then health secretary Steve Barclay saying that ‘for too long our healthcare services have treated these conditions separately’.

Now in response to a parliamentary question by MP for York Central Rachael Maskell, public health minister Andrew Gwynne said that, as of last month, work on the major conditions strategy has been paused as the Government evaluates its future plans for the NHS.

He said: ‘As of July 2024, work on the Major Conditions Strategy has been paused. As we develop our plans to rebuild the NHS, we will consider how we incorporate the findings from the Major Conditions Strategy into our plans.’

The strategy was first announced last year by Mr Barclay, and listed the six target conditions as:

  • cancers;
  • cardiovascular diseases, including stroke and diabetes;
  • chronic respiratory diseases;
  • dementia;
  • mental ill health;
  • musculoskeletal disorders.

The strategy interim findings suggested that AI could be used to ‘streamline’ screening programmes so they are more efficient.

The first focus of the plan was supposed to be ‘primary prevention’, including interventions across the population to reduce the risk of disease, for example schemes to increase physical activity.

As part of the Government plan to ‘rebuild the NHS’, last month health secretary Wes Streeting revealed that Professor Lord Ara Darzi will lead an investigation into the state of the NHS.

The findings from Lord Darzi’s ‘rapid’ review, expected next month, will inform a new 10-year plan to reform the NHS, and GP leaders have asked him to take into account of risks to continuity of care, insufficient funding, and rising workload dump.

Professor Azeem Majeed, head of the department of primary care and public health at Imperial College London, told our sister publication Pulse that it was likely the government was awaiting further information before finalising its NHS plans.

‘In this context, pausing major decisions seems sensible because if the various ongoing reviews made specific recommendations, these need to be factored into NHS planning,' he said.

A version of this article first appeared on our sister publication Pulse.