NHS England to go is Keir being unreasonable?

[43percentburnt]

I don’t work for the NHS but have friends who do (and are increasingly looking at leaving - in some cases to move abroad).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/cx29lrl826rt

Is the removal of NHS England a good thing? Or is this a Labour gimmick?

To include an Aibu for Keir -

Yes Keir - you are being unreasonable

Or

Good job Keir, please get rid of NHS England - you are NOT being unreasonable

I never really understood the point of NHS England - the only dealings I had with them seemed utterly ridiculous (about being allocated a GP surgery) Seeing the news today it “seems” like a good thing but then I’m not sure I’m being told the truth and don’t have all the info.

Yes the idea the money saved from nhs england going will pay for more frontline clinicians really misses the fact that there are thousands of clinical vacancies thay can't be filled.

Also the teams responsible for devising solutions to the workforce shortages will be cut

Seems like many on here have decided nhs managers are the problem woth the nhs, every health care system in the world has management and the nhs actually has a lower proportion of managers than other better performing healthcare systems.

Nhs managers have become a useful political football for politicians who don't want to provide the nhs with the level of funding it needs or resolve the difficult problems such as workforce shortages

We still spend less per head on healthcare than most other countries and the money saved by reducing the nhs england workforce makes up an incredibly tiny proportion of the total budget

People say things were better before nhs england was established which is correct but misses the point that funding per capita declined significantly from that point due to austerity

There were also regional bodies that some of the work nhs england does now prior to 2012 but there is no reference to those being stood back up.

If people think this will improve things for patients they will be disappointed, as most healthcare think tanks have pointed out this work will be a distraction from the real job of improving services.

Really it's just a rachel reeves cost cutting exercise because the bond markets didn't like her last budget

I agree that NHS Trusts, ICBs, Regions and NHS England need non-clinical staff to provide policy, statistics and data. Centralised data analysts that look at National data for the NHS are always easy targets for the public. Its very upsetting for those, like me who are Senior Analysts in Healthcare (I jumped from NHSE to CQC last year and had to take a huge pay cut)

I was in the middle of a meeting when it flashed up on Sky News - we knew there was a 50% headcount reduction coming but only when Sir Keir Starmer made the announcement yesterday morning were NHSE employees informed! This is why so many directors and the Chief Executive quit in the last 3 weeks - they knew this was coming.

Yes I agree - the public think that getting rid of 6,500 NHSE staff will mean 6,500 more nurses and doctors - this is so far from the reality its off the scale. I've been looking on NHS jobs this morning and there are tens of thousands of clinical vacancies that the NHS Trusts cant fill and only a handful of non-clinical roles available.

So in reality this is a merger with DHSC - but does anyone know what will happen to the Data teams yet eg - Statistical teams and National Data Platfform/UDAL?

Are NHSE staff moving over to Civil Service contracts rather than Agenda for Change?

Help me out here...

How is scrapping NHSE anything to do with Privatisation? or the claims the Tory Party is the Nasty Party?

The Tory party had no such qualms introducing Universal Credit.... which really did have far reaching impacts to the most vulnerable... as well as once again, employing loads more civil servants.

This change will bring accountability back to the elected Govt... no more buck passing to NHSE & duplication.,,, as a clinician said this morning "He cannot think of one positive thing NHSE has done to advance patient care"

Look back to the post war Labour Govt that introduced the NHS and see what its founding principals were... it didn't involve employing far more admin staff than health workers.

The nhs does not employ more managers than healthcare workers that is quite simply nonsense. Why do people feel so comfortable with just making stuff up

No it isn't and i never said Managers... nor did i say admin staff are not needed but the growth in non clinical staff since 2010 is huge.

The latest figure i could find was from 2016, where Non Clinical vs Clinical was 50/50.
According to Streeting, the numbers employed in non clinical roles has doubled since 2010.

Do you think thats good?

So not far more, non clinical doesn't equate to admin either it coulf include a vast array of staff including cleaners, cooks, porters, building maintenance.

I really can't say if it's a good thing or not I think you would have to look at what balance other countries have to say that. Its obviously much easier to increase the non clinical workforce. There are thousands of clinical vacancies available with no one to fill them st the moment.

It's a long term problem that has been the governments responsibility to fix (not nhs englands). Which sort of demonstrates the problem with people thinking bringing nhs england into dhsc will deliver some actual benefits

Hiring more non clinical staff such as porters has definitely delivered benefits some places because it takes away a job that trained healthcare staff often have to do but don't need to do

🤣An even ratio because there are so many unfilled clinical posts. NHS hospitals are filthy and falling down. When a relative was in hospital recently, my observation was that it could do with a dozens more porters, rather than relying on junior doctors to turn up at the end of the day to wheel them to the xray department because nobody else was available and as a result they were now stuck in hospital for yet another night regardless of the result of the xray. I don’t think the clinical staff will fix the filth and the constant power cuts and IT breakdowns - it’s not their job.

NHS hospitals are filthy and falling down.

Like all generalisations this is absurd. Our local one is falling down because it was only meant to have a 25 year lifespan when it was built over 40 years ago. It’s on the list for replacement. In the 20+ years I worked in the NHS and the 50+ as a patient I’ve never seen a filthy hospital. I’ve see some pretty shabby ones and I’ve seen beautiful new ones with every room single and en suite. The shabbiest one I’ve ever seen was in Italy.

Bear in mind, that many people who work in hospitals, who you mention, in a non clinical role, are employed by the private sector, these non clinical roles wont appear in the figures...
Nor will the non clinical staff employed by the out sourcing of community services, like Physio or MH services.

The figures i quoted were from 2016, pre Covid.... how can a doubling of non clinical staff since 2010 be justified?

Removing a layer of administration "should" bring benefits, the NHS managed to deliver better pre NHSE, than it has post NHSE.

The Landsley reforms were a disaster... and whilst abolition of NHSE in itself isn't going to fix the NHS, its a start.

What i do find funny is that soooo many people have said "chucking money at the NHS doesn't work, it needs reform" .... when that reform starts, its all doom and gloom.... and complaining

And for all those who said it came as a surprise when Keir starmer announced it - I knew mid Feb and had an inkling a couple of weeks before that when job vacancies were pulled

How did you know? I applied to an NHSE Post recently - even had an interview - however I wasnt offered the role it went to another candidate! I wonder if job offers made in February have been pulled as well?

I agree with a pp that we need to consider unintended consequences. Health isn’t my area but I agree the removal of the audit commission was a huge mistake which has led to significant problems in local government finance.

I wonder if they told you it had gone to another candidate when in fact it wasn’t filled at all.

The NHS was working at peak efficiency before NHSE was created. This is just reverting to that model.

Reform achieves nothing in itself which is why very few in the healthcare system were calling for more structural reforms at this stage.

The whole idea that throwing money at the nhs doesn't work is another lazy opinion by people who don't bother to think about the issues with the nhs.

In reality funding per capita is lower than most other major nations at a time when the population is growing and getting older.

Few would argue with undoing the lansley reforms but it's not clear the proposals would actually do that, and in reality the changes will have little impact on patient care. What it may do is distract people who could be leading on improving care which is why the healthcare thinktanks have been quite skeptical of the changes

The idea it will remove a layer of bureaucracy is probably not right given dhsc will simply deliver many of the same functions

Yes perhaps! Who knows! Glad I didnt get it as after a few months of joining I would be exiting again. Lucky escape (though I was gutted at the time). I should have known NHS England were merging with DHSC as all vacancies were pulled at the end of January and it is logical to de-duplicate functions. It is going to take until 31st March 2027 though to complete the integration into DHSC. I expect by summer 2027 DHSC will start recruiting analysts again though.

We don’t know yet.

Thhe vacancies were pulled in response to the initially announced 15% reduction in the workforce and shortly after wes streting said he didnt want to get rid of nhs england

Yes funding per capita is lower than other comparable health systems... but the country doesn't have huge amounts of money to spare... so why would we spend 2 billion on a body that adds nothing to patient care?

Plus the think tanks are not against these changes, they just think that other structural issues will still persist, they also agree that NHSE duplicates functions done elsewhere too...

The Lansley stuff cannot be undone in one sweep of the pen, the NHS stuff has to function and deliver services as reform takes place.