The health secretary has vowed to continue “slashing bloated bureaucracy” as he says that scrapping NHS England is “the beginning, not the end”.
Wes Streeting suggested hundreds more quangos could be in the firing line after the prime minister announced the end of the body overseeing the health service in England.
Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, he said: “The abolition of NHS England – the world’s largest quango – is the beginning, not the end.
“Patients and staff alike can see the inefficiency and waste in the health service. My team and I are going through budgets line by line, with a relentless focus on slashing bloated bureaucracy.”
NHS England has managed the health service since 2012, when it was established to cut down on political interference in the NHS – something Mr Streeting described as an act of “backside-covering” to avoid blame for failures.
But on Thursday, Sir Keir Starmer announced this would come to an end as he unexpectedly revealed the government would abolish NHS England in an effort to avoid “duplication”.
In his Sunday Telegraph article, Mr Streeting suggested more was to come, saying new NHS England chair Penny Dash had “identified hundreds of bodies cluttering the patient safety and regulatory landscape, leaving patients and staff alike lost in a labyrinth of paperwork and frustration”.
The move towards scrapping NHS England and other health-related quangos marks a change in direction for Mr Streeting, who in January of this year said he would not embark upon a reorganisation of the NHS.
He told the Health Service Journal he could spend “a hell of a lot of time” on reorganisation “and not make a single difference to the patient interest”, saying instead he would focus on trying to “eliminate waste and duplication”.
But in his article he said he had heard former Conservative health ministers “bemoan” not abolishing NHS England, adding: “If we hadn’t acted this week, the transformational reform the NHS needs wouldn’t have been possible.”
The government expects scrapping NHS England will take two years and save “hundreds of millions of pounds” that can be spent on frontline services.
But during the week, Downing Street would not be drawn on how many people were facing redundancy as a result of the changes.
