Interministerial Group for Health and Social Care communiqué, 25 September 2025
Published 24 November 2025
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Third meeting of the Interministerial Group (IMG) for Health and Social Care, 30 April 2025
Location: online.
Attendees
Chair: Dr Zubir Ahmed, Minister of State for Health and Secondary Care, UK Government
Other ministers in attendance:
- Neil Gray, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, Scottish Government
- Jeremy Miles, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, Welsh Government
- Mike Nesbitt, Minister of Health, Northern Ireland Executive
What was discussed
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care had been due to chair the meeting but was unable to attend at short notice. Minister Ahmed therefore chaired the meeting on their behalf. Ministers discussed innovation, elective care, and the programme to bring patients from Gaza to the UK for treatment. Other issues raised included neighbourhood health, pandemic preparedness, and attacks on emergency workers.
Innovation
Ministers agreed on the importance of strengthening innovation across the 4 nations. They discussed the role of regulation, health data, and research in supporting innovation and highlighted the need to address workplace culture and systemic barriers. Ministers also noted the importance of ensuring the UK is seen as a global leader in health innovation, advances in scientific and technological innovations for health and care systems and their potential to drive service transformation and support growth.
Ministers signalled commitment to seek where practical common solutions to common challenges and explore - as a priority - the potential for closer collaboration on innovation adoption initiatives to maximise impact and support our life science sector across all 4 nations. Ministers also agreed to compare processes for recovering costs from industry following clinical trials.
Electives
Ministers confirmed that reducing waiting lists is a top priority across all 4 nations. They shared approaches being taken to increase capacity and improve efficiency:
- in England, focus is around managing increasing demand, and outpatient and diagnostic transformation
- in Scotland, regional hubs and a new theatre scheduling tool have improved productivity
- in Wales, progress is being made towards reducing the total waiting list by 200,000, with initiatives such as greater use of high-street optometrists
- in Northern Ireland, the focus is on reducing very long waits and shifting towards neighbourhood health services and prevention
Ministers agreed on the value of sharing learning and best practice and noted the need for systemic reform to ensure sustainable improvements.
Gaza
Ministers welcomed the progress made in transferring patients from Gaza to the UK for medical treatment. They praised cooperation between officials across the 4 nations and agreed that patient privacy must be protected.
Other points of discussion
Ministers briefly discussed:
- 4-nations workshops related to the UK government’s 10 year health plan for England
- pandemic preparedness
- a potential future discussion on assaults on emergency workers
- neighbourhood health, including tackling health inequalities, was agreed as a substantive agenda item for the next IMG
Next meeting
The meeting closed with agreement that the next Interministerial Group for Health and Social Care will take place in December 2025 and will be chaired by Mike Nesbitt Minister of Health, Northern Ireland Executive.