It has taken the Conservatives an entire decade to recover from their last attempt to legislate for a reorganisation of the NHS. Now, they’re proposing to unpick some of what’s left of that Health and Social Care Act.
Details of a Health and Care White Paper leaked to the excellent Andy Cowper at Health Policy Insight last week revealed that ministers want to grab more control of the health service overall, as well as individual foundation trusts and matters such as water fluoridation. The Health Secretary will become significantly more powerful.
Some of this forthcoming legislation contains changes NHS England has long wanted and been expecting, such as abolishing Andrew Lansley’s clinical commissioning groups and replacing them with integrated care systems. The new powers for the Health Secretary, less so.
There has been growing irritation within the government at the way in which Simon Stevens, who was partly brought in as NHS England boss because he was a political operator, has turned out to be an effective political operator – often more so than his professionally political counterparts.
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