Health expert reveals how country may benefit as Keir Starmer announces NHS England will be abolished
Keir Starmer today announced that he was going to abolish NHS England, which means today is the day a lot of people have learned what NHS England actually is after mistakenly thinking he was going to scrap the NHS itself.
The Prime Minister made the announcement this morning (13 March) in Hull, saying the move would bring the NHS in England 'back into democratic control'.
What it means in practice is that about half of the jobs at the organisation that employs around 13,000 people are expected to go and the responsibility for running the NHS in England returns to the Health Secretary.
Starmer said NHS England was 'overstretched, unfocused, trying to do too much, doing it badly', and said the money saved from cutting out a layer of bureaucracy would go to 'nurses, doctors, operations, and GP appointments'.
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Speaking to LADbible, Professor Philip Banfield, council chair of the British Medical Association, spoke about how Starmer's announcement was both a 'surprise' and 'not a surprise at all'.
"On the one hand, it's a surprise because the trade unions didn't seem to be consulted before announcing that so many jobs would be at risk," he said.
"But on the other hand, it's not a surprise at all, because NHS England has become detached from the front line of hospital care.
"We have have found ourselves in a situation where the organisation running the NHS in England isn't listening to doctors, and that's not a good place to be."
Professor Banfield said the move 'removes a layer of complexity' from the way the NHS operates in England and the responsibility for running it will be entirely down to the Health Secretary, as it is in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
He explained that whether abolishing NHS England makes patient care better in the NHS 'depends on whether the decision making is made better for the doctors and patients on the front line of of services' and if it can 'materially increase the number of doctors'.
Professor Banfield paid tribute to the senior doctors in NHS England 'who were magnificent at working with the BMA during the doctors strikes last year because they had that clinical understanding', but also told LADbible of some things which the government could do to help the NHS now the buck stops with them once more.
"One of the contradictions that NHS England threw up was not having enough doctors," he said, explaining that the health service in England was 'roughly 2,000 anaesthetists short'.
"Yet they were only trying to train 400 doctors at a time when there were more than 2,000 doctors in training who wanted to apply for those posts.
"So there was no joining up. And what this change gives the opportunity to join up healthcare."
Another situation this change could potentially tackle if there's more money going to frontline healthcare services is the number of GPs available to people.
Starmer's government has promised to improve access to GPs and end the '8am scramble', and Professor Banfield suggested possible ways to improve the NHS along those lines.
He said: "We've got this really perverse situation where patients are desperate to see a GP, but there are GPs who are unemployed because the expenses and costs of employing them in general practice have not kept up with with the real rise that's needed to keep them in work.
"We're seeing over 1,000 GPs unemployed at the point at which there is a desperate need for them.
"Now, that could be corrected immediately, and that's a really good use of money, because General Practice is probably the most efficient part of the health service."
The BMA council chair said that there were also 'five resident doctors applying for every training place' which was causing problems
"And of course, when you can't get that training place, you look to go abroad," he said.
"So we're driving doctors out of the out of the system."
Professor Kamila Hawthorne, Chair of the Royal College of GPs, told LADbible: "Throughout any reorganisation, the priority must always remain patients and making sure that healthcare professionals are properly supported and resourced to deliver the care they deserve.
"What's vital moving forward is that every step of the planned integration of NHS England and DHSC is carefully thought through and does not become a diversion.
"General practice delivers the vast majority of patient contacts in the NHS but has faced decades of neglect and underfunding.
"Our hardworking GPs are being pushed to breaking point every day by workforce and workload pressures, and our patients are still reporting struggling to access our care.
"We need change, and we will work with the Government to make sure any reforms deliver the care our patients need and that dedicated GP teams are appropriately supported to do their jobs."
Health Secretary Wes Streeting has said he wants the process of rolling up NHS England to be completed within two years, so we'll have to see how they do.
LADbible has contacted the Department of Health and Social Care for comment.
Joe Harker