{"id":260005,"date":"2025-03-16T11:46:46","date_gmt":"2025-03-16T11:46:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/16\/wes-streeting-admits-risk-of-disruption-in-nhs-overhaul\/"},"modified":"2025-03-16T11:46:46","modified_gmt":"2025-03-16T11:46:46","slug":"wes-streeting-admits-risk-of-disruption-in-nhs-overhaul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2025\/03\/16\/wes-streeting-admits-risk-of-disruption-in-nhs-overhaul\/","title":{"rendered":"Wes Streeting admits ‘risk of disruption’ in NHS overhaul"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Health Secretary Wes Streeting has said there is a “risk of disruption” in the NHS as he attempts to overhaul the service and reduce waste, but has promised long-term improvements.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Streeting announced NHS England, a public administrative body, would be scrapped to save money and give ministers more control of health services.<\/p>\n

The Labour government expects the move will take two years and save hundreds of millions of pounds that can be spent on frontline NHS services.<\/p>\n

Appearing on the BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg programme, Streeting defended the reforms but admitted there would be challenges.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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When asked about the impact on patient care, he said: “Of course there are always up-front costs. And yes there is always a risk of disruption.”<\/p>\n

Streeting said former health secretaries had “not been prepared to take on those sorts of challenges” and argued NHS England “was set up to shield politicians like me from responsibility”.<\/p>\n

He said: “I’ve seen waste, inefficiency and duplication. So of course we should go after that.”<\/p>\n

When asked for a second time if patient care would be disrupted by the government’s reorganisation of the NHS, Streeting promised to deliver improvements and said waiting lists for treatment had already been falling.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The government said its main reasons for abolishing NHS England were to “cut bureaucracy” and reform how health services operate.<\/p>\n

It dubbed NHS England “the world’s largest quango” – the term used to describe publicly funded organisations at arm’s length from the government<\/p>\n

Currently, NHS England oversees the health service, working with government to agree funding and priorities, as well as monitoring the performance of local NHS services.<\/p>\n

Under the changes, the organisation will be brought into the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), which is headed by Streeting.<\/p>\n

The reforms will not impact anyone’s access to the NHS, with the health service remaining free at the point of use.<\/p>\n

The government said it expected around half of the jobs at NHS England and DHSC to go – around 9,000 administrative roles.<\/p>\n

Writing in the Telegraph<\/a>, Streeting suggested scrapping NHS England was “the beginning, not the end” and said he would continue “slashing bloated bureaucracy”.<\/p>\n

The health secretary tasked Penny Dash, who was made chairman of NHS England at the start of this month, with carrying out a review of bureaucracy.<\/p>\n

Speaking to the BBC, Streeting would not be drawn on which bureaucratic NHS organisations he would consider axing.<\/p>\n

But he said he was “going after the bureaucracy not the people who work in it”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Health Secretary Wes Streeting has said there is a “risk of disruption” in the NHS as he attempts to overhaul the service and reduce waste, but has promised long-term improvements. On Thursday, Streeting announced NHS England, a public administrative body, would be scrapped to save money and give ministers more control of health services. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":260006,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/1024\/branded_news\/ba76\/live\/aad43df0-0254-11f0-8c3d-b7dcc7510cb1.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[603],"tags":[614,16052,6827,14667,1115,29378,40358],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260005"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=260005"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":260007,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/260005\/revisions\/260007"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/260006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=260005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=260005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=260005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}