The NHS could be in line for yet another major reorganisation under plans being weighed up by the health secretary.
With the government’s most recent health plans yet to be signed into law, a new set are already apparently being drawn up.
Sajid Javid is reportedly considering a shake-up of hospitals in line with reforms to the education system launched under the coalition government.
He is looking at proposals to introduce ‘academy-style’ status in a bid to slash post-pandemic waiting lists, according to The Times.
The reforms would give successful hospital bosses more freedom to run their own affairs, while new powers would be introduced to force failing trusts to improve.
Struggling health areas would be forcibly turned into ‘reform trusts’ to speed up changes, as already happens with schools.
Chains of hospitals ‘will be run by leading NHS managers, or even outside sponsors, although this is yet to be decided’, the paper reports.
A Whitehall source told The Times: ‘Sajid’s reform agenda is all about driving up performance across the NHS. To achieve that we are going to apply some lessons from the academies programme.’
The government is under pressure to bring forward proposals to ease the huge backlog of cases created by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Delayed and cancelled appointments have seen waiting lists swell to an unprecedented six million, a third of whom have waited more than 18 weeks for an operation.
It’s less than a decade since health reforms spearheaded by then-health secretary Andrew Lansley were signed into law, creating a new organisational structure for the NHS.
The government’s latest attempt to reform the health service have been set out in the Health and Social Care bill but the legislation is still making its way through parliament.
The NHS Confederation, a body which represents thousands of health workers, has responded angrily to briefings about further planned reforms.
Its chief executive Matthew Taylor called the ‘speculation…very unhelpful’ and said the system is already dealing with the fallout of Covid-19 and rolling out previously announced changes.
He warned ‘academy-style’ arrangements may clash with the ‘direction of travel’ set out in reforms announced under previous health secretary Matt Hancock.
Mr Taylor added: ‘These reforms are geared towards empowering local systems to work in partnership so the risk is that these latest ideas undermine this agenda before it has even been fully implemented.’
He blasted the reports as ‘ill-thought-through attempts to grab headlines’.
Metro.co.uk has contacted the Department for Health and Social Care for comment.
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