Wes Streeting was called out on a major U-turn this morning when Laura Kuenssberg revealed a previous speech in which he pledged not to sack NHS managers. The promise contrasts with his announcement this week of major lay-offs as part of a huge NHS reorganisation, involving the scrapping of the NHS England quango.
Turning to the NHS, Ms Kuenssberg revealed a clip from a speech by Mr Streeting last November at the NHS Providers annual conference. The Health Secretary pledged: “I could be no more popular than to announce the sacking of lots of managers, but that would not be the right thing to do.” Ms Kuenssberg pointed out: “That’s not so long ago. You said ‘I’m not going to sack lots of managers, even though it would be really popular.”
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Wes Streeting was confronted with his own words from last November (Image: BBC)
“And now, essentially this week, that’s exactly what you’re doing. You’re getting rid of NHS England, you’re getting rid of about 12,000 people at what are called care boards around the country.
“You’re doing a massive reorganisation of the health service when you always said you wouldn’t!”
Mr Streeting insisted that was his view when he made the speech just a few months ago, however his first eight months in the job had opened his eyes to the need to do the opposite of his previous pledge.
He told the : “I must say, in the last eight months, what I’ve experienced in terms of how the NHS is set up and the way it works and the level of duplication, man marking, waste, inefficiency, has driven me to make the announcement that the Prime Minister and I made on Thursday.”
He explained: “Instead of having two head offices, which is effectively what we’ve got today, we will have one. We will return numbers back to where they were when Labour was last in power, delivering the shortest waiting times and the highest patient satisfaction in history.”
“The combined size of NHS England and the department is about double what it was [in 2010], but we’re not seeing results.”
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Wes Streeting pledged last November not to sack NHS managers (Image: BBC)
Mr Streeting refused to set out other managers and NHS bodies he plans on scrapping as part of the major reorganisation, however he admitted there will be thousands of job cuts as part of the plan.
He confirmed to Laura Kuenssberg, “I can’t sugarcoat the fact that there will be a significant number of job losses.”
Writing in the Telegraph this morning, the Health Secretary warned that hundreds of quangos are “cluttering” up the health system, wasting money, time and making the jobs of frontline staff harder.
He warned bureaucrats that there is “far more change to come”, and that cutting NHS England is just the start.
He warns: “The abolition of NHS England – the world’s largest quango – is the beginning, not the end.”
“Patients and staff alike can see the inefficiency and waste in the health service. My team and I are going through budgets line by line, with a relentless focus on slashing bloated bureaucracy.
“Change is hard. And with far more change to come, I know there will be cautious voices warning us to slow down. But we inherited an NHS going through the worst crisis in its history.
“There’s no time to waste. Labour will never duck the hard work of reform. We will take on vested interests so that the NHS can be there for you when you need it, once again.”