HEALTH secretary Wes Streeting is set axe thousands of jobs at NHS England.
Streeting’s plan follows Monday’s shock announcement that NHS chief executive Amanda Pritchard’s is set to depart the organisation in March.
Wes Streeting had previously said the UK Government should consider the use of private capital to fix the NHS’s crumbling buildings and infrastructure. This drew condemnation from Scottish political parties.
Replacing Pritchard for the foreseeable future will be Jim Mackey, chief executive of an NHS trust that operates hospitals in Newcastle.
Streeting has said he plans to usher in “a new era for the NHS” and revive the public service that voters care most about.
This includes reducing the size of the body in operational charge of the health service through cuts to its 13,000-strong workforce.
He plans to end the situation whereby separate teams of officials at NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) cover the same area of health policy, such as primary care, which he regards as an unnecessary “duplication” of roles, the Guardian reported.
NHSE personnel will bear the brunt of job losses, which will be “significant” in scale, it is understood. Several teams will be merged, including the two organisations’ respective communications teams, with much closer joint working.
A Whitehall source told The Guardian that: “In future, NHS England will still play a crucial role but it will have a smaller and leaner role. It will be a smaller role than what it’s currently doing, which is a lot, but which involves a lot of duplication.
“Historically there have been too many disagreements [between the overlapping teams of officials] and duplication of tasks and roles and responsibilities.”
Streeting’s plans to publish plans to tackle the long waits for A&E treatment and ambulance, has been delayed after NHS England raised doubts about whether such a plans was needed and what genuinely new initiatives could be included, one senior official said.
The Conservative-appointed chair of NHS England Richard Meddings is to end his three-year term in March and be replaced with Dr Penny Dash.
Dash is the chair of the north-west London integrated care board – a regional grouping of NHS trusts and local councils.
