The long-awaited ABI Strategy will not be delivered this year after the Government has “dragged its heels” in finalising the landmark project which is set to transform survivors’ experience of brain injury care.
Having been given the go-ahead by the Government in December 2021, replacing the need for the Private Members’ Bill introduced by Sir Chris Bryant which called for the creation of an ABI Strategy which would become law, it still has not been unveiled.
While Sir Chris, as chair of the ABI Strategy, has engaged with stakeholders across the country with personal and professional interests in brain injury to garner comprehensive insight and feedback, the wait continues for how the Strategy’s impact will be felt.
The intention of the ABI Strategy – which Sir Chris revealed will be a 10-year initiative – is to help to create a more streamlined approach between Government departments for the UK’s estimated 1.4million brain injury survivors to access the care and support they need in a timely and more efficient manner.
Although unanimously welcomed as being a positive introduction, concerns have been raised about the funding behind the ABI Strategy, as well as its potential to truly level the current ‘postcode lottery’ in provision.
Sir Chris himself has previously spoken to NR Times of his worry that the political turmoil seen in Government since the Strategy’s creation was announced would lead to delay.
Speaking at the UKABIF Time for Change summit, Sir Chris admitted his “frustration and irritation” that the Strategy will not be introduced before the end of the year, and expressed his wish that he had pursued his Private Members’ Bill instead.
“I wish I had pursued that and made it a legal duty of the Government, because to be honest, the Government has dragged its heels,” he told the event at The Lowry in Manchester.
“Every single Secretary of State after Sajid Javid (who gave the go-ahead for the Strategy, rather than it becoming law) has said they’re fully behind this.
“Every single junior minister who has been made co-chair with me has said ‘We’re definitely going to do it’. It will happen by the spring, by the summer, by the end of the year….by the spring, by the summer, by the end of the year.
“I’ve sat down with Steve Barclay, and he has said to me, I don’t know how many times, that they’re fully committed. But the problem is that nothing ends up being done.
“It doesn’t feel as if much is getting done generally in the country at the moment. I think it’s part of a wider malaise, rather than being a deliberate attempt not to engage with us.
“I just want every single Government minister to realise that if we did this properly across the whole of the country, we could be giving 1.4million people back a real quality of life.”
However, while the wait for the ABI Strategy will now go into 2024, Sir Chris reiterated his absolute commitment to delivering it.
“I’m determined that we will have a national strategy for acquired brain injury in this country so that we can get people back a quality of life so that people aren’t pushed from pillar to post so that families have the support that they need,” he said.
“Even if the first thing we did was get proper statistics, proper data about how many people there are in this country who have an acquired brain injury, that will be a significant step. I want a ten-year strategy with staging post milestones at each step of the way, just to see what we can do.
“I promise that the one thing I will do in my political life is I will make sure that we have a national strategy for acquired brain injury, so that the people who have a brain injury next year, and the year after, and in five years’ time and in ten years’ time, have a better experience than the people who had one five years ago, 10 years ago, and 15 years ago.”
