'Hazy' plans to abolish NHS England leaves staff and patients in the dark, report says
Patients and staff have been left in the dark with what comes next after the abolition of NHS England, a report from MPs has found, describing the Government’s plans as “hazy”.
The Public Accounts Committee, which assesses the value for money of government projects, has said Sir Keir Starmer’s proposal to scrap the Leeds-based body has “caused great uncertainty for all involved with the health system”.
In March, the Prime Minister announced he was abolishing NHS England, the arm’s length body created in 2012 to oversee the budget, planning, and day-to-day operation of the commissioning side of the health service.
These functions are set to be moved to the Department for Health and Social Care, while half of the staff at the organisation, which is headquartered in Leeds, will lose their jobs.
At the same time, the Government said the number of staff at DHSC and integrated care boards (ICBs) across the country will also be roughly halved.
Sir Keir claimed the move would free up money for doctors, nurses and frontline services, and cut red tape to help speed up improvements in the NHS, amid frustrations about the pace of change.
However, now the PAC has said, two months on, the Government has still “not set out how this major structural and operational change will impact key services and targets to improve patient care”.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting told The Yorkshire Post that Leeds will remain the headquarters for his department outside of London, however little other detail has been released.
The PAC said there is still the “lack of a clear plan” for how DHSC and NHS England will achieve the staffing cuts, and the geographical spread of this across ICBs.
It warned that institutional knowledge at NHS England risked being lost in reforms, and said it was not clear how the savings would help frontline services.
Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown MP, chair of the Committee, said: “Our report shows a health system still under pressure on a number of fronts, pressure which will need strong decision-making from government to begin to be relieved.
“One significant decision, the abolition of NHS England, was announced whilst our Committee was questioning senior health officials.
“All those who work for NHS England deserve our ongoing gratitude for their efforts to safeguard the nation’s health.
“But it has been two months since government’s decision to remove what up until now has been seen as a key piece of machinery without articulating a clear plan for what comes next, and the future for patients and staff remains hazy.
“These changes also require a 50 per cent reduction in local health board staff, including frontline services such as health prevention, GP services and dentistry.
“These services are usually the first interaction a patient has with the NHS, so we will require further reassurance and clarity on how government intends these changes to play out on the local level.”
When announcing the changes, Mr Streeting said: “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, and deliver our plan for change.
“By slashing through the 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.”
A DHSC spokesperson: “Serious reform is needed to tackle the challenges facing the NHS, which is why we are bringing NHS England back into the department - eliminating wasteful duplication and freeing up hundreds of millions for the frontline.
“Patient safety is the bedrock of a healthy NHS and social care system. This government will ensure the country has the best system in place to keep patients safe by overhauling the overly complex bureaucracy of healthcare regulation and oversight and we will examine the drivers of costs, how to manage spending on clinical negligence and the potential merits of reform options.”