The Prime Minister's focus on cutting waiting lists means the NHS is in an "endless hamster wheel" with the main focus on hospital care instead of preventing ill health in the first place, an NHS leader has suggested.
Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, which represents NHS trusts, said more investment needs to be put into GP surgeries, public health and community-based services One of Rishi Sunak's key commitments is to "cut NHS waiting lists", but Mr Taylor said that this means the focus is on the "end of the process".
Speaking ahead of the annual Edwin Stevens Lecture at the Royal Society of Medicine, which Mr Taylor was due to give later on Monday, he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "When money is short there's a sense of crisis and this leads to a short-termism where the department, the centre of government, is continuously firing out targets. It also leads to a kind of focus on particular issues.
