During his eight months, the British Secretary on Health, Wes Streting, exercised discreet reforms in the health service, such as the New Hospital League tables and dismiss underperformant managers, as part of a wish to repair the “broken” NHS.
Tuesday, after Amanda Pritchard said that she had left her post as director general of the organization who heads the health service in England, he revealed a more dramatic part of his vision for the very “change of change” Vailed from the government: control of Whitehall tighter.
“We are going… Require a new relationship between the Ministry of Health and Social Hells and the NHS England,” said Streting. Pritchard’s successor, Sir James MacKey, had “radically remitted”, added the NHS in England.
Health sector figures were expected at the end of Pritchard, but not before Streting published its plan over 10 years in the spring. They said that the promise of a new relationship reflected the government wanting to look serious about the NHS reform in the absence of a detailed strategy.
“They deleted Amanda because they want to do something,” said a person, who advised the government. “It has become obvious to everyone in the industry that the Wes team entered without a plan.”
“This is the optics,” said another figure in the health sector, “and Wes wants to be considered more radical.”
Last year, the government announced an increase of 22.6 billion pounds sterling in the daily budget of the NHS over two years and an increase of 3.1 billion pounds 2010, outside the pandemic.
The hospital’s bosses welcomed billions of new funding pounds, but said they would only make the NHS remaining motionless, and the commitments seemed to fly in the face of the repeated insistence of the street that new liquidity would be conditional to Reforms.
The Allies of Street, who was a ghost health secretary between 2021 and last July, defended the time he took to develop a plan, pointing the size and complexity of the NHS and the pressures of an aging population and increasing with more complex health health.
Street has implemented three “big changes” which would pass the NHS from an “analog” to a “digital” service, more care from hospitals to communities and the objective of the service of “prevention disease” .
But colleagues ministers ran to make their mark more visibly: Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner has, for example, introduced radical reforms to planning and devolution system.
A figure in the health sector said: “Many reforms would involve major arguments with the unions and if it has an eye on the leadership of the Labor Party, is it ready to take these big steps?”
The resignation of Pritchard to come one day after meeting Streetting suggested that he had pushed his departure, suggested a health official.
Streetting told journalists on Tuesday that he had not asked Pritchard to resign, but only last month, two parliamentary committees questioned her leadership, describing her as “complacent” and “out of ideas”.
A government official said that Pritchard “had chosen to resign and that everything was very friendly”, noting that the ministers have been clear since last summer that they “wanted a closer employment relationship between the NHSE and the DHSC” .
The Street Reform Program would inevitably mean that the two organizations shrink, added the person.
MacKey – Who is Managing Director of Newcastle Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and has held various health services – should be in office for several years, supervising a restructuring and a large -scale reduction in the number of health officials.
Richard Sloggett, who was a special advisor to the Conservative Secretary of Health, Matt Hancock, and is now heading a health consulting firm, said MacKey had “linked to the most important agenda” by reducing times ‘Waiting for non -urgent treatment after having become the national director of elective recovery in 2021.
In this role, MacKey had also indicated how the government and the NHS in England could work better together, developing a plan to reduce the arrears that positioned “Jim as an operational leader, but well appointed by the ministers,” said Sloggett.
Another health care leader who worked with Mackey said he would be “much more pragmatic and much more focused on results” than Pritchard.
A way it would be obvious was in a different attitude towards the private sector, he predicted, adding: “Amanda never really understood or loved, but tolerated, the private sector, while Jim considers them as doing part of the solution. “
This month, Street announced Penny Dash, a former doctor and hospital partner in McKinsey, as a new president of NHS England from March. He also called on Tom Kibasi, president of several NHS trustees, to write the plan at 10 years – a decision that health officials interpreted as they are away.
Sarah Woolnough, Director General of King’s Fund, a health and social care reflection group, said that Mackey took the bar at a extremely critical time for the NHS “, with the ministers who should develop great changes and the Service with high demand and budgetary pressures.
“It is crucial that the two organizations [the health department and NHS England] Continue to work well together, but just as important as NHS leaders retain operational and clinical independence for the daily management of the service, “she added.
