 I can only learn so much sitting on my desk in Whitehall, and even on a tour where I get taken to all the nice bits, I want to know what's actually going on and how you really feel. What do you need from me? We would like a full UNE that would allow us to be more efficient, more effective with what we've got. I think we've got a bit of a dated department. It would be lovely to get a brand new department. Right. That would be good. Okay. Is there anything you're willing to share with us that you wish we'd done differently? Great question. Very important question. I think endless things. The big learning is that the NHS can move fast if it needs to. And I think we should all be very proud of that. There's a positive learning that, you know, whether it's the Nightingale hospitals building them in nine days, you turn around your emergency department in ten. I'm really impressed by just the expansion of the ANE. That attitude, just get it done. You know, let's just make it happen and everybody coming to help. It's so important. I must say thank you so much for all the support to the NHS. And I think what we realise here is that doing something fast and reasonable is better than demade and perfect. Really, the thanks are for you, right? It's been a really, really tough year, a difficult year. And you know how much the public appreciate you. So on that behalf, I want to thank you. And this goes not just to everybody in the room, but to everybody who works for the NHS locally. Because my favourite story in the whole world is Kennedy going to NASA. When he met a janitor on the way in and he said to that janitor, thank you for helping put a man on the moon. This is a big team effort and everybody looks after the health of everybody around here. And so I want to say on behalf of all the people who we also thank you very much. Good afternoon. My name is Nimco Ali and thank you for joining us here today on the Sunday in conversation with Matt Hancock. I'll be asking Matt Hancock some questions and then you'll be able to send some through. Matt, thank you for asking me to host these events. I think one of the key questions that people might ask is like, how did I come to this seat? How do you and I know each other and how do I get to interview the Health Secretary? Well, it's great to be here, Nimco. And I remember a couple of years ago when I first became Health Secretary and you approached me and said, if you think that we should be governing for everybody in this country, then we have to govern for all and provide the NHS for all. And in particular, there is no service to support people and support women who've suffered from FGM and survived FGM and we need to do that. And we now, thanks to your campaigning, we have eight FGM clinics open around the country. We opened the last ones of them during the pandemic. And in a way, it underlines the point that the NHS is there for us all and it needs to have the services for everybody and it's under a Conservative government that we have ensured that the NHS has got the resources that it needs and also is reflecting modern Britain. I think so. That was completely amazing. I think one of the speech that you gave at the opening of those NHS clinics around FGM was one of the most passionate ones that I heard and what really stood with me was the fact that you said I can't wait for these clinics to be closed down because there was a massive commitment from you and the government in order to end FGM, which I'm greatly thankful for. So the NHS saved my life at the age of 11 when I had severe complications from FGM and it saved my mum's life when she had breast cancer and it's a service that my niece was born into. What does the NHS mean to you, not just as Health Secretary but also as somebody that accesses it? Well, yeah, it's so important, isn't it? We have an emotional connection to the NHS and that is true of almost every person in this country. You know, in my case, the NHS, I was born in the NHS but it saved the lives of members of my family, several members of my family. It's always that it's there for you. I also think that we as a party are increasingly seen as custodians of the NHS. We protected the NHS in its most difficult days during the peak of coronavirus in March and April. You know, we're here at Canary Wharf. We built those Nightingale hospitals and I'm really proud of how we've supported the NHS all the way through this. But, you know, that's the policy end. It is. When I go around the country meeting people who work in the NHS, meeting the public, the thing that matters is that it is always there for you and so many people have experienced some of either the best or the worst moments of their lives in the NHS and it's more than just a policy. It's an emotional relationship. Well, no, I completely agree and just before COVID took hold, one of the key things that you were looking at was a women's strategy and I do get a lot of flak for calling certain conservative ministers and MPs for feminists but I do believe that you are a feminist. Can you tell us about the health strategy and why you're so committed to make sure that the NHS does deliver for women? Well, I'm a believer in equal opportunities and I think that if you believe in equality of opportunity then you've got to believe in equality of opportunity no matter your gender. Men and women should have equal opportunities in my view and that makes me a feminist I suppose but it's rooted in a conservative value of equal opportunities and then trying to give people the best chance of making the most of their lives and at its heart I believe so strongly that everybody has a contribution to make, everybody has a part to play and we've talked about that during the pandemic because we've all got a part to play but it's much broader than that and one example of how we put that into reality is having a women's health strategy because medicine for 200 years has been the domain of men and there's just not historically been the attention to some conditions that affect women more than they affect men. We talked about FGM, the symptoms of a heart attack are still taught as if they're the same for men and women and they're just different for men and women and take conditions like endometriosis, enormously painful for thousands of women and hasn't historically had the attention that it deserves. So if we're going to be a party for everyone and we're going to level up, we've got to make sure that we're a party that seeks out and promotes equality of opportunity between men and women. So is that a commitment that the women's health strategy is going to be back on the table? Yes, so the women's health strategy which we talked about immediately after the election blazing on it, we'll obviously have to recast it post COVID but building back better means making sure that we get those 40 hospitals built that the Prime Minister announced on Friday night and that's a very exciting project to get going. We hire the 50,000 nurses, we've now hired 14,100 more nurses in the last year and we're on track to our commitment to 50,000 that we made a lot of in the general election campaign and that we deliver our women's health strategy and this will be a big thing in the future. Okay, great. You know, I'm going to hold you to that. I'm getting used to being held to the commitments that I've made. Okay, that's great. So another thing, I know we've touched on COVID and it is the biggest thing that has happened in 2020. Can I just ask, first of all, how are you in terms of dealing with this and at the same time, like, you know, what has COVID taught you, not just as health secretary, but also as a member of the government? Yeah, well, that's a great question. I think that... I think the thing that it's taught me most is the importance of deciding what you need to do, deciding on the strategy and then driving it through. If you think of, you know, the expansion of testing, there was a huge debate about testing. The expansion of testing wouldn't have happened without absolutely clear, strong direction that this is what we need to do. It's also taught me that we can do so many things so much faster. You know, we... When we saw the stories from China of them building a hospital in a fortnight, people said, oh, we'll never be able to do that in Britain. And we did it in nine days with the Nightingale Hospitals and, you know, we can do this stuff. We can make it happen. And so I'm more convinced that ever in the levelling up strategy that inspired so many people to vote conservative in December, many for the first time, you know, levelling up and building back better, that is the agenda in health, in transport, in so many different areas, in the economy more broadly. That's the agenda that we need to follow. Of course, the next few months are going to be... They're going to be tough getting through coronavirus. And then we've got to absolutely come out of that firing on all cylinders. And it's going to be hard. But we know what we need to do. And I think that the government's decision to not just stick by but absolutely deliver on the key manifesto commitments, like the 40 new hospitals and others, you know, Pretty Patel hiring 20,000 more police, you know, we are going to deliver on these things, even though the challenges are so much greater than we could have ever envisaged back in December. So I think one of the kind of things I pick up from your reply to those questions is that you're looking at more of a preventative measures so can you talk a little bit about that? Well, this is one of the big things that we need to do to protect the NHS in the long term. So, you know, the Conservative Party is without doubt the party of the NHS. The first thing we did after the general election, the first law we passed was a law to put the funding of the NHS into law onto the statute book. We protected the NHS in its hour of most need during the peak of coronavirus and we're going to deliver on those key commitments, 50,000 more nurses and 40 new hospitals. But we need to protect the NHS over the long term as well and that means yes, the people and yes, the buildings, but it also means using the best modern technology and really embracing that and it means a prevention of ill health and I think for too long the NHS has seen itself as providing just for, you know, picking up the pieces when things have gone wrong and instead we need more of a sense of shared responsibility, individuals, people, everybody responsible for their own health as well as the NHS taking responsibility to keep people healthy in the first place and it's through more of a preventative agenda, through the embrace of new technology as well as the bricks and mortar and obviously the people who make up the NHS. That's how we protect the NHS in the future and I'm absolutely determined that we will always be the party of the NHS. That's really great to hear because I think one of the key elements is as somebody that works on something like female genetic mutilation, I have been talking to countries to really look at the fact that the well-being, the health of a country is actually very much key to its economic growth and that's one of the key things. So for us, at the Five Foundation, we've looked at economic development and things like violence against women and girls so I think that's a... Would you agree on the fact that a healthy population leads to a wealthier population? We've seen that during the pandemic. We know that you're more likely to die from coronavirus if you're obese. I can't think of a better reason to tackle obesity and let's not do it through nannying. We do it through supporting people. So for instance, I want to change the system so that when you go to your GP, if you're overweight, they help you and help you to deal with it in the same way that they now do that for people who smoke and it's support like that to help people stay healthy and to harnessing technology like the brilliant NHS COVID app which now had over 15 million downloads. It's been an absolute... It's gone off the shelves like hotcakes, like digital hotcakes and so combine the use of technology with the ability to help to keep people healthy in the first place that once we're through this pandemic and this too will pass, we will then be able to build the future of the NHS based on these principles that we've learned. Honestly, I think one of the exciting things about having you as health secretary is the fact that you're not just committed to women's health but also you're committed to technology and use in the 21st century skills that we have in order to improve our NHS. I know a lot of people can be skeptical about that but can you just realise the power of technology within health? People have seen during the pandemic that if you want to visit your doctor it's really important that you should be able to have a face-to-face. But for many, many people talking to them on the phone or on video conference is more convenient and easier. Now obviously there are health complications you might have where you need to physically meet people, of course. But having the option is the best of both worlds and now about 50% of visits to the GP and about 50% of outpatient visits are done by telemedicine. That's up from under 10% before the crisis. It's good for patients, it's good for doctors. It's these sorts of things that are going to mean that we can protect the NHS and that it's not only the right thing to do but also it's the best and most effective, most efficient way of providing health care because you can embrace that technology so you get the better value for money which is an important conservative principle we should never lose sight of. On that note, I'm going to embrace technology myself and see some of the questions that are coming in. If you do have any questions for the health secretary please do send them through. One of the ones that I have here is being a nurse is one of the most rewarding careers. How are you going to try to encourage more people to the profession? There's a massive programme now of hiring more nurses. We made that commitment, 50,000 more nurses. We were putting that in train when the pandemic struck. We then opened up the recruitment of nurses to more people during the pandemic because we needed the extra staff and that's led to a big increase including some retired nurses coming back to the profession. My grandmother was a nurse and I grew up understanding from her just how fulfilling it is to spend your days caring for others and making them better and looking after them. So we've got to make the NHS a more fulfilling place to work. We've got to make sure that it's at all levels open to new ideas and people who want to improve it get the encouragement to do that. We're going to hire more nurses and we're going to keep doing that until we have what we need in the NHS. You're not just the health secretary for the NHS but you're also the care secretary as well. One of the questions here is what is the government's plans to make the UK more dementia-friendly and how are you supporting people and families living with dementia? This is another critical area and another area where we have made commitments in our manifesto that we must meet. On dementia we committed to doubling the research funding for dementia and we've done that and I hope that that will bring fruits in the years to come. There is just the chance that we can find medicine and a breakthrough and that means that we can delay the onset of dementia or potentially even stop it all together. The same grandmother I was talking about who was a nurse she lived with dementia for the last five or so years of her life and fortunately she stayed cheerful and kept her dry wit right through but it was painful to see her decline That commitment in our manifesto is a commitment that we will deliver on to do everything we can to find new breakthroughs and I want to use Brexit to mean that we can have the best, most dynamic health regulator in the world that can bring technologies to bear as fast as is safely possible. I want us to be working with people right around the world not just as we are now on coronavirus treatments where we've come up with the only country that's come up with a treatment that is known to work but on treatments for all sorts of other illnesses as well. Is that another place where technology can actually play a key role in terms of helping us to be innovative? Yes, it's critical and the way that we do healthcare is completely changing because of technology and we've got to embrace that and we've got to embrace it and explain to the public why it matters. It matters because it saves lives it matters because it might be able to delay the onset of dementia it matters because it means that everybody in this country can live with the confidence that if they fall ill then we will all come together to look after them. Ultimately the NHS is a patriotic institution and I think it's a deeply conservative principle to believe in patriotism and equal opportunities and that's what we as a party unashamedly need to get out and shout from the rooftops. I think what was interesting is that we saw the NHS as kind of like a family member at the time of the crisis which that's something that my mum said but one of the questions coming back to Covid is so what are your hopes for a Covid vaccine being developed? This is the great hope isn't it and the Prime Minister said this morning there'll be some bumpy months ahead but we're working as hard as we can to get a vaccine as fast as safely possible and the plans are in train a combination of the NHS and the armed forces are involved in the logistics of making this happen making the roll out happen because it's not just about developing the vaccine and then testing the vaccine which is what's happening now it's then a matter of rolling out the vaccine according to priority according to clinical need we've set out the order in which people will will get it and we've set that out in draft pending the final clinical data and no vaccine technology is certain and we've got to make sure that this is done safely and you'll have seen that we paused it to check on the safety we absolutely will not shirk from our responsibilities in terms of its safety but that will then help us to start getting out of this so that I hope that by next year the rest of this Parliament is then about the recovery of this country and having come into politics inspired by what we can do to support small businesses I come from a small business background getting back on to the back on to the agenda of levelling up and of the economic recovery that we are going to need I'm desperate for us to get to defeat this virus and then get this country back firing all cylinders again I do believe that we will defeat this virus but I think your positive kind of energy really does help I do think that we will beat the virus but what are your kind of final thoughts as we sit here today on a Sunday in 2020 what do you think 2021 is going to look like for the NHS and for this country well I think the story of 2021 it's a long way off already I mean three months is a long time in the life of a health secretary in the middle of a pandemic but I hope we can have as normal a Christmas as possible I then hope that the vaccine technologies work and I then hope we can get back on to the business of recovery and that's what I want to see and I think we should all be energised doing the work now like the 40 hospitals announcement so that despite the fact that we have this extraordinarily difficult and challenging thing that has been thrown at us this pandemic that we can steer the country as well and as safely as possible through these incredibly stormy waters and then and then sail into karma seas beyond well I'm really hopeful of that as well thank you very much Secretary of State for your time and thank you for having me as your interviewer as it were, thank you very much for joining us and good afternoon