The past few days have seen some welcome candour about the NHS in England and Scotland. English Health Secretary Steve Barclay has been preparing the English public for long waits that will still be a major issue at the next election. NHS Scotland, meanwhile, has been discussing the possibility that a ‘two-tier NHS’ might end up being the norm.
Barclay is also keen to scrap as many targets as possible in the health service, which is in part an admission that many of the most high profile ones haven’t been met for years. It is also a sign of an important shift in the treatment of the health service by the top brass.
Barclay did his pitch-rolling on waiting lists and targets in the Sunday morning broadcast round. It’s been reported in some quarters as the end of the ‘pen-pushers’ in the NHS, with Barclay and Chancellor Jeremy Hunt looking to cut budgets and staff at central NHS England by as much as 50 per cent.
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