Health secretary Wes Streeting has today (March 13) revealed that work to halve the number of NHSE and Department of Health and Social Care (DH) employees and reinvest “millions” into frontline services will begin “immediately”.
Streeting today took questions on the groundbreaking move in the House of Commons, after Prime Minister Keir Starmer this morning announced plans to abolish NHSE and bring the management of the NHS “back into democratic control”.
The health secretary revealed that his department will “entirely” absorb the ‘arms-length’ body over the next two years.
Read more: IN FULL: Starmer reveals plans to abolish NHSE
Answering questions from shadow health minister Dr Caroline Johnson, Streeting confirmed that the government is looking to reduce the overall headcount at both NHSE and the DH by 50% - bodies that currently employ 15,300 and 3,300 staff members respectively.
But he added that new NHSE chief Sir James Mackey will put in place “a new transformation team to drive change”.
Read more: NHS chief Amanda Pritchard to step down next month
“There will be two national medical directors - one for primary care [and] one for secondary care - underpinning our commitment to the shifts that we’ve described,” he said.
Streeting added that the DH will “need to make primary legislative changes” to enact the reforms, but “much of the change can be delivered without the need for primary legislation”, allowing the department to start work “immediately”.
ICBs to cut costs 50%?
Streeting told MPs that the reform 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”.
He added that reports that integrated care boards (ICBs) have been “asked to cut costs by 50%” relate to “completely unaffordable” deficits that have been “sent into NHSE ahead of the 2025/26 financial year”.
“Those are the financial plans that are being revised as we speak,” he said, revealing that local leaders have been “gathered to London today to receive that message”.
Read more: HSCC give NHSE 2-week deadline for economic analysis update
He stressed that chairs and chief executives from across the country have been told to “get an immediate grip on the £5-6 billion deficit that was already being baked in” to the next year’s budget.
“They have become so accustomed to the idea that governments will just come in and bail them out,” he said.
“We are bringing…financial discipline to the NHS, we will not tolerate deficits,” he added.
Read more: NHSE ‘really very tight’ on pharmacy, Hancock reveals
Despite this, Streeting said that NHSE’s abolishment should leave primary care with “quiet hope and optimism”.
“I hope we are beginning to turn what has been deep anger and frustration and anxiety among primary care leaders,” he added.
Streeting also announced that pharmacy minister Stephen Kinnock is “in the very final stages of work with pharmacists to stabilise the community pharmacy sector, which is vital for the NHS future as a neighbourhood service”.
NHS reshuffle
“If we are just replicating NHSE as it is - with all of the challenges that it has - in ICBs across the land, we will have failed, frankly,” Streeting told the house.
“It needs to feel like and act like a completely new organisation, culture, way of working,” he said.
“Change is always disruptive and can be scary and of course when job losses are involved I know that is particularly the case,” he told MPs, adding that “there will always be cautious voices warning you to slow down, however broken the status quo is”.
Read more: CPE mulling over ‘initial’ funding offer - as it bumps up LPC levy 2%
“The NHS is broken, but it is not beaten - together, we will turn it around,” he added.
Today’s news comes after a slew of announcements over the last month that NHSE officials will step down – including chief executive Amanda Pritchard.
Meanwhile, NHSE last month greenlit plans for the “vast majority” of vaccination and screening services to be commissioned locally from April next year.
