Sir Keir Starmer has announced plans to abolish NHS England and bring the health service under government control.
Giving a speech on his plans for civil service reform today, the Prime Minister has confirmed he will scrap the “arms-length body” NHS England.
Sir Keir said the decision will see the management of the health service brought “back into democratic control” and put the NHS “back at the heart of government where it belongs”.
He said: “I can’t in all honesty explain to the British people why they should spend their money on two layers of bureaucracy.
“That money could and should be spent on nurses, doctors, operations, GP appointments.”
Starmer added: “So today I can announce… I am bringing management of the NHS back into democratic control by abolishing the arms-length body NHS England.
“That will put the NHS back at the heart of government where it belongs, freeing it to focus on patients, less bureaucracy, with more money for nurses.
“An NHS refocused on cutting waiting times at your hospital”.
NHS duplication
NHS England is the body which leads the National Health Service in England, and is responsible for “statutory functions, responsibilities and regulatory powers” and focused on “supporting and overseeing the wider NHS to deliver effective and high quality care”.
During a Q&A following his speech, Starmer was asked by a cancer patient how the decision would improve NHS services.
He said: “Amongst the reasons we are abolishing it is because of the duplication.
“So, if you can believe it, we’ve got a communications team in NHS England, we’ve got a communications team in the health department of the government; we’ve got a strategy team in NHS England, a strategy team in the government department. We are duplicating things that could be done once.
“If we strip that out, which is what we are doing today, that then allows us to free up that money to put it where it needs to be, which is the front line.”
He added that the government wanted to push power to frontline workers “and away from the bureaucracy which often holds them up”.
‘Significant savings’?
Speaking in the House of Commons, after the Prime Minister’s speech, health secretary Wes Streeting told MPs: “These reforms will deliver a much leaner top of the NHS making significant savings of hundreds of millions of pounds a year.
“That money will flow down to the front line to cut waiting times faster… by slashing through layers of red tape and ending the infantilisation of frontline NHS leaders we will set local NHS providers free to innovate, develop new productive ways of working and focus on what matters most – delivering better care for patients.”
Streeting claimed he “cannot count” the number of Conservatives who had privately told him they regretted the 2012 reorganisation – which created NHS England – but said they felt reversing it had been put in the “too difficult box”.
He added: “Today we are abolishing the biggest quango in the world.”
John O’Connell, chief executive of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, argued: “Taxpayers will be sceptical about the prime minister’s rude awakening to the urgent need to reform the state, given he’s spent his time in office handing inflation-busting pay rises to Whitehall pen pushers while setting up a litany of new quangos.”
He added: “Starmer needs to ensure that his attempt to reshape the state does not end with a speech, and that these plans genuinely end unnecessary duplication while freeing up cash for frontline services and targeted tax cuts.”