Policy paper

Interministerial Group for Health and Social Care communiqué, 30 April 2025

Updated 25 July 2025

Second meeting of the Interministerial Group for Health and Social Care, 30 April 2025   

Location: online.

Attendees

Chair: Jeremy Miles, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, Welsh Government

Other ministers in attendance:        

• Neil Gray, Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care, Scottish Government
• Mike Nesbitt, Minister of Health, Northern Ireland Executive
• Wes Streeting, Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, UK Government
• Ashley Dalton, Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Public Health and Prevention, UK Government
• Sarah Murphy, Minister for Mental Health and Wellbeing, Welsh Government

What was discussed

All ministers welcomed this second meeting of the Interministerial Group for Health and Social Care, and the opportunity to discuss potential areas for collaboration, and the sharing of information.  

The group discussed 2 substantive agenda items focused on respective government approaches to mental health and pandemic preparedness. 

Mental health

Discussions centred around common priorities across the 4 governments on mental health, including addressing the demand for mental health services and consideration of the risks of ‘over medicalisation’ of mental health conditions in the context of ensuring the right support at the right time.

It was acknowledged that there were common challenges across the 4 governments.

The 4 governments agreed on the importance of providing early support, delivered in schools and in the community, to address demand, especially for children and young people.

It was agreed that sharing information on the respective approaches of each government would be helpful.

Ministers agreed to return to this topic at a future meeting.

Pandemic preparedness

On pandemic preparedness, it was noted that productive conversations had already been held and the work undertaken to date on pandemic preparedness was recognised as a good example of collaboration across the nations.

Ministers agreed that a 4-government approach to pandemic preparedness was required. 

Ministers agreed further work should take place to establish the principles for engagement, including the key areas that would require a collaborative approach. It was agreed that a short progress note should be tabled for the next interministerial group (IMG) meeting.   

10 Year Health Plan and changes to NHS England

The UK Secretary of State provided an overview of the latest position regarding the UK 10 Year Health Plan for the NHS in England. He also referenced the proposed changes for NHS England. The UK Secretary of State underlined that the changes to NHS England aim to reduce duplication and support local decision-making. A programme board had been established to take forward this work. 

Other points of discussion

Ministers briefly discussed performance and productivity issues and committed to sharing their own learning and reform proposals in areas such as:

• increasing accountability
• incentivisation
• waiting lists
• elective care plans
• funding pressures

The Cabinet Secretary for Health and Social Care confirmed that an independent expert report had been published the previous day with recommendations to improve productivity and performance of the Welsh NHS.

At the previous IMG meeting in December 2024, officials were tasked with developing proposals for increased 4-government innovation collaboration for consideration by the IMG in 6 months’ time, with an interim update provided in 3 months. Ministers were asked to note the 3-month innovation update and consider the recommendation outside of the IMG as there was insufficient time to discuss.