Nhs

‘Deputy succeeds boss’ might not normally feel like a ‘hold the front page’ type headline. But the announcement that Amanda Pritchard is the new head of NHS England – replacing Simon Stevens – reveals a lot about the state of the NHS and the future direction of the health service. Firstly, the process. Despite concerns that the race to succeed Stevens would be politicised, Pritchard’s appointment (which I revealed on Thursday, thanks to a spot of digital and logistical sleuthing) is understood to have been wholly free of political nudging. Some of the credit for this goes to Number 10 health advisors and some to Lord David Prior, NHS England’s chair

What is the point of the Covid-19 app? Ministers seem to be as in the dark about the answer to this question as the rest of us, with the government tying itself in knots over whether it means anything at all to get ‘pinged’ and told to self-isolate. Downing Street has contradicted Business Minister Paul Scully, who said this morning that there was no need to self-isolate if it was just the app that alerted you. He told Times Radio:  It seems that there is a genuine schism in Whitehall ‘The app is there to give…to allow you to make informed decisions. And I think by backing out of mandating

Is the NHS about to be privatised? That’s the charge from some campaigners as the Health and Care Bill starts its journey through parliament. Certain doctors, mainly on social media, are calling on MPs to scrap the Bill because they claim it will open up the NHS to more privatisation and allow private companies to skim profits off our healthcare system. It’s a big charge, albeit a familiar one, as it tends to pop up whenever there is legislation on the health service. But the strange thing is that it’s very hard to find the evidence for these social media claims in the actual legislation. In fact, these proposals are aimed

Effective cabinet ministers are ones who work out what they want to do in a department on arrival, and then stick to that very small set of priorities whatever the political winds and storms. Michael Gove had this approach in the Education department, setting himself three priorities and then focusing on getting them delivered. Not only did he then replicate this approach in his subsequent Whitehall briefs, but he also inspired other ministers to do the same. Jeremy Hunt, who largely modelled himself on Gove when he became health secretary, also gave himself a small list of things he wanted to do in his time overseeing that brief. Now, it

Could the NHS backlog be even worse than we feared? It’s been reported that the pandemic has pushed a total of five million people onto NHS England waiting lists. But speaking to BBC Radio 4 on Tuesday, health secretary Sajid Javid revealed a new figure, which was not previously in the public domain: As a fresh set of eyes coming in, the thing that shocked me most was the huge waiting list and the number of people that did not come forward because of the pandemic. We estimate there’s some seven million people that did not come forward to the NHS to be helped with things like cancer, with heart disease.

Sajid Javid’s parallel statement in the Commons to Boris Johnson’s press conference on the government’s plan for unlocking drew the same criticisms about failing to protect the vulnerable and bowing to Tory backbench pressure. He did get a ‘hallelujah’ from one such backbencher as he spoke of the end of social distancing. But the health secretary faced anger from the opposition benches about the decision to leave mask wearing up to the public and businesses at a time when cases are rising. Green MP Caroline Lucas compared Covid restrictions to road safety laws, asking why a similar approach to the speed limit couldn’t be taken to mask-wearing. Javid’s argument was that

Sajid Javid has his first Commons outing as Health Secretary today, not even 48 hours after he took over from Matt Hancock. As Katy outlines here, the focus will be on how he differs from his predecessor on the pace of easing Covid restrictions. But Javid will also quickly face questions on whether he plans to scrap some of Hancock’s ambitious plans to reform the NHS too. As I reported last week, there is growing anxiety in the health service and in the Conservative party about the forthcoming Health and Social Care Bill, with one senior figure warning that it could end up being ‘Lansley mark II’. That’s a reference to

Are the Conservatives going to repeat their mistakes of a decade ago on NHS reform? If a week is a long time in politics, perhaps ten years is such a lengthy period that it erases the memory entirely. The current Health and Social Care Bill is due for publication any day now and contains much of the same potential for an almighty political row as the Andrew Lansley reforms of 2011. Senior Whitehall figures and MPs have predicted that Matt Hancock’s new legislation could be ‘Lansley mark ii’, as I write in today’s i paper. In talking to MPs across the Conservative party, from backbencher to minister, and from lockdown sceptic to restrictions

Dido Harding’s campaign to become the next boss of the NHS in England took a high-profile turn this weekend. ‘Sources close to Dido Harding’ (perhaps ones occupying the same pair of shoes) briefed the Sunday Times about the Conservative peer and ex-boss of the £37 billion Test and Trace scheme pitch as a candidate. (If appointed, the noble Baroness will reportedly resign from the Conservative party and take an indefinite leave of absence from the House of Lords.) Apparently, the health world’s favourite noble Baroness will end England’s reliance on foreign doctors and nurses if she replaces Sir Simon Stevens as the next head of NHS England. This is an interesting and

You might think that a cabinet minister and privy councillor whose reputation for truthfulness had been brought into (very public) question would be inclined to keep their public utterances strictly on the straight and narrow. You’d be failing to allow for the enthusiastic approach of the Health Secretary. Matt Hancock used his presentation to today’s NHS Confederation Conference to try to explain that the five million-strong NHS backlog, claiming it was down to Covid-19. Asked about providing guarantees of funding to address the NHS backlog, Mr Hancock told the event that ‘the virus is responsible, and the backlog is a consequence of the pandemic’.  This is, quite simply, untrue. The NHS backlog

NHS England boss Sir Simon Stevens’s final speech today was watched online by hundreds of health service bigwigs. But its main audience was much smaller. It was aimed squarely at just two people: Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak. Stevens’s main message was about funding. The government, and, in particular, the Treasury, may not be thrilled once they wrap their heads around his statement on the five-million-strong (and Covid-predating) NHS backlog that ‘when the health service is given the backing and the tools we need, we can deliver what’s required’. Translated into plainer language, Stevens was saying: ‘Get your wallets out: this is going to hurt’. The mega-hint here is clear: Sir Simon

In England, the NHS is run by an organisation with an identity crisis. It calls itself NHS England, but that’s just self-promotional branding. In law, it is the NHS Commissioning Board, created by Andrew Lansley’s controversial 2012 reforms which gave the NHS a high level of autonomy from direct government control. The NHS Commissioning Board was first run by ex-Communist Sir David Nicholson; then by a former Labour councillor and ex-New Labour special advisor Sir Simon Stevens, who steps down at the end of July. Based on that trajectory, a cynical observer might suggest that in the distant future even a former Liberal Democrat could one day get the job.