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Personal health budgets (PHBs) allow individuals to have greater control over the health care they receive by allowing them to choose how the money on managing their needs is spent. The 10-year plan aims to double the number of people offered a PHB by 2028/29, offer 1 million people a PHB by 2030, and ensure it is a universal offer for all who would benefit by 2035. People eligible for NHS continuing health care (CHC) have had a legal right to a PHB since 2014.

For years, the number of people waiting in overcrowded A&E departments for a hospital bed has been rising. And every winter, stories of ambulances queuing outside hospitals, and hospital corridors being used for patients on trolleys, make news headlines. Since the Covid-19 pandemic, there has been growing concern from staff and patients about patients being treated in areas not designed for clinical care.

Elderly and frail patients aged 81 and over are worst affected by the ongoing crisis in A&E, which often leaves those admitted to hospital waiting for a bed to become available in inappropriate places like corridors and cupboards. In 2025, 43% of over-80s faced an agonising wait of more than 12 hours between arrival in A&E and admission to a hospital ward, compared with 19% of those aged 21-30.

Responding to annual registration data from the Nursing and Midwifery Council, Nuffield Trust Senior Fellow, Kathryn Marszalek said: “With the nursing and midwifery workforce becoming more diverse, the NHS must root out the racism that many staff are experiencing at work. While there are now more Black, Asian and ethnic minority nurses and midwives on the register, our analysis found that minority ethnic staff are less well represented at senior levels in the NHS.

Responding to the Prime Minister’s speech on social care reform, Nuffield Trust Deputy Director of Policy Natasha Curry said: "The Prime Minister is absolutely right to try to call the country and political parties together in a conversation about social care. This is everyone's business, whether it touches you, your family, or the people you live around, and the current state of affairs is completely unacceptable.

Responding to Andy Burnham's statement that the "NHS will collapse" if social care is not reformed, Nuffield Trust Deputy Director of Policy Natasha Curry said: "It is right to recognise that the NHS and social care are deeply interconnected, but the case for fixing social care extends far beyond protecting the NHS. There is a moral imperative to ensure older and disabled people can live independently with dignity, and a compelling economic case too.

Andy Burnham has made history this week as the first modern Prime Minister ever to have previously headed up the Department of Health. Since his last stint in government, the name of that department has been changed to reflect its responsibility for social care, and it is social care, not health, where Burnham has chosen as one of his first priorities in office.

Yvette Cooper is the sixth person to hold the health and social care brief in four years, but unlike most recent incumbents she brings deep Cabinet experience and prior time in the Department of Health. She will need it: Andy Burnham has put social care reform at the centre of his premiership, the NHS is midway through a major reorganisation, and the 10-year health plan now needs to move from promise to delivery.

On Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s remarks on social care [1], Nuffield Trust Chief Executive Thea Stein said: “It is refreshing to hear a Prime Minister talk about social care with this level of ambition. After 30 years of false starts, it is absolutely right that we move social care from being a neglected and incoherent public service to one that sits at the centre of government’s plans for a more prosperous, dignified and functional society.

As Andy Burnham takes office, Britain seems set to enter a new era of policymaking with devolution and localism as defining themes. In his first major speech as Prime Minister, Burnham promised to “take power out” of Downing Street and devolve more power to local areas – repeating a pledge he made repeatedly in his leadership campaign. As his new Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Yvette Cooper will be expected to transpose that agenda to the NHS. It will be far from straightforward.