Wes Streeting to chop 18,000 NHS jobs amid warning restructure not ‘creation scheme’
Major NHS restructure explained as Health Secretary Wes Streeting scraps NHS England and merges back office functions into his government department
Wes Streeting has been given the go ahead to axe 18,000 NHS managers as he warns: “I’m not running a job creation scheme.”
The Health Secretary has been given the green light from the Treasury for the major restructure which will take the axe to back office managers and administrative staff at NHS England and regional NHS centres. The move is predicted to save £1 billion a year by the end of this Parliament but will initially cost £1 billion in up front costs such as redundancy payouts.
NHS leaders were worried this would leave a £1 billion black hole in its finances this year but Mr Streeting has struck a deal with Chancellor Rachel Reeves to defer payment.
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The deal means the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) can overspend its allotted budget by about £1 billion this financial year – but must pay this back from savings in future years so will have less money in 2026/27. Ms Reeves has rebuffed a plea from Wes Streeting for an emergency extra cash injection of £1 billion to cover the cost of merging back office functions of NHS England back into DHSC and “removing duplication”.
Speaking in LBC, Mr Streeting said future savings will be diverted towards frontline NHS care, adding: “There will be more jobs on the front line in the NHS, and there are many people who work in these organisations who have either valuable skills that could be used in the NHS or elsewhere, or indeed are qualified clinicians who I’d rather see closer to the frontline, or at the front line.
“The second thing is – and I say this with care and sensitivity for people who come to work in these jobs, work hard and are dedicated to the NHS – it’s my responsibility to make sure that we’re spending every penny wisely, and if we’re spending it on jobs or functions which are not essential and could be done better elsewhere in the system, it’s my responsibility to do that.
“I’m not running a job creation scheme, I’m running a National Health Service, and I’ve got to make sure that every penny that’s going in is going to the front line. Especially ahead of this Budget – which everyone is saying is going to be a difficult budget, and potentially with some unpopular measures in – I owe it to every taxpayer in the land to make sure that I’m spending their money as carefully as they are spending their money.”
Regional bodies which commission NHS work locally are called integrated care boards (ICBs). The government believes they have become bloated with back office roles over the last decade. ICBs have been asked to make about 12,500 of their 25,000 staff redundant.
The Government had already announced that headcount across both NHS England and the Department of Health will be cut by around 50%, with around 18,000 administrative staff and managers, including on ICBs, set to go. It says the reforms will slash “unnecessary bureaucracy” and raise £1 billion a year by the end of the Parliament to improve services for patients.
It said every £1 billion saved in bureaucracy costs is enough to fund an extra 116,000 hip and knee operations. Chancellor Rachel Reeves is expected to make further announcements regarding the health service in the Budget on November 26.
In a later interview this morning Mr Streeting told BBC Breakfast that NHS staff had told him there are “too many layers of management” and “ bureaucracy”. He said: “People want to see the front line prioritised, and that is exactly what we’re doing.”
Mr Streeting’s speech to health leaders at the NHS Providers conference in Manchester on Wednesday afternoon was expected to tell them “we’re finally on the road to recovery”. He said: “There are lots of green shoots. Waiting lists are finally beginning to fall after 15 years, we’re exceeding the promises we made to the public in our manifesto on the NHS.
“But I would also be the first to say to your viewers this morning that for all of those green shoots of recovery and things that are going well, there’ll be people today who are struggling to get access to a GP, can’t get a dentist, are waiting far too long for treatment, are worried about whether they’re going to get their test or scan for things like cancer, and that is the thing that drives me, knowing that we’re moving in the right direction, but there is so so much more to do.”
