Saj’s struggling NHS revolution

Sajid Javid was something of a breath of fresh air when he was appointed as Health Secretary last June. Gone was the libidinous, lockdown-loving Matt Hancock; in came the Thatcherite free-marketeer promising a ‘return to normalcy.’ Since then, some of the shine has come off the Saj. First, there was the debacle over Covid passes at Christmas. And now the Health Secretary faces the perennial problem which faced his predecessors: how to pay for a creaking health service with an ageing population?

In his first major policy speech last week, Javid spoke candidly to the Royal College of Physicians (RCP). He warned that the NHS is on an ‘unsustainable financial trajectory’ and urged new methods to ‘reduce costs.’ It is perhaps regrettable then that less than a week on, Mr S has seen figures which show that health bosses spent more than £236 million on management consultants last year – despite evidence that they make matters worse. 

Figures from Javid’s ministerial colleagues show that the Department of Health spent £171 million on such consultants in 2020/21 – the most recent year for which data was available