Keir Starmer will be hoping long-term gain is worth the short-term pain with NHS reorganisation

Perhaps I should have twigged that a big announcement was coming, but speaking to unions and other sources they were completely shocked when the Prime Minister revealed he was abolishing NHS England.

The arms-length body was formed 13 years ago following a reorganisation under the Health and Social Care Act 2012, during the coalition government.

These were known as the Lansley Reforms after the Health Secretary at the time, and have widely been seen as a failure.

They set up NHS England to oversee the budget, planning, delivery and day-to-day operation of the commissioning side of the health service, which previously took place in the Department for Health and Social Care.

Now this work will once again be subsumed into DHSC.

The Prime Minister claimed the move would free up money for doctors, nurses and frontline services, and cut red tape to help speed up improvements in the health service, amid frustrations about the pace of change.

At the speech in Hull, he said: “I can’t in all honesty explain to the British people why they should spend their money on two layers of bureaucracy.

“So today I can announce we’re going to cut bureaucracy, focus Government on the priorities of working people, shift money to the front line.”

A lot of senior health figures believe the reorganisation could bring benefits in the long run, however the question is about the impact of the short-term pain.

The new Government has incredibly ambitious plans around the NHS, which includes all patients being seen within 18 weeks by the end of the Parliament.

Health Secretary Wes Streeting has promised a total transformation of healthcare in England, which would see it move from analogue to digital and far more services in the community.

That is going to take an awful lot of work, and can it happen with this huge reorganisation ongoing?

It appears that the Health Secretary and Prime Minister have perhaps underestimated the scale of the change which they are bringing in.

About 50 per cent of the NHS England staff - many of which are based at its headquarters in Leeds - are to lose their jobs, as well as other people at integrated care boards, while the rest will move to DHSC.

This is not a simple task, with big pay disparities between the two and staff morale already “reeling” according to the union Unison.

Redundancies, complaints and grievances are likely to take senior staff members’ attention away from the work at hand, while people with important experience could well quit or be made redundant.

Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, and Daniel Elkeles, incoming chief executive of NHS Providers, summed up the risks in a joint statement.

“This is the end of an era for the NHS and marks the biggest reshaping of its national architecture in a decade,” they said.

“Our members will understand the dynamics at play here, but it comes at an extremely challenging time, with rising demand for care, constrained funding and the need to transform services.

“History tells us this will cause disruption while the transition is taking place. Much of trust and ICS leaders’ focus will need to go on stabilising the NHS in the short term as they prioritise patient care but we also need to ensure we get the right balance between recovery and reform given the opportunity provided by the upcoming ten-year plan.”