I think this is a good direction. “NHS England” was a pointless layer of bureaucracy, and cynically I believe the primary reason the Tories introduced it was in the hope that bad news about the NHS would be blamed on the NHS England organisation, not the (technically separate but practically not) government. Which didn’t really work, people still blamed the Tories for waiting lists and such.
The only potential positive I see with the current system is that if there’s a change in government, the people running the NHS don’t change, so theoretically there’s not a sudden shift in how it operates that would interrupt plans and cause turmoil. In reality, though, the government affects a lot of what NHS-E do, so the government has a major effect either way.
I think this is a good direction. “NHS England” was a pointless layer of bureaucracy, and cynically I believe the primary reason the Tories introduced it was in the hope that bad news about the NHS would be blamed on the NHS England organisation, not the (technically separate but practically not) government. Which didn’t really work, people still blamed the Tories for waiting lists and such.
The only potential positive I see with the current system is that if there’s a change in government, the people running the NHS don’t change, so theoretically there’s not a sudden shift in how it operates that would interrupt plans and cause turmoil. In reality, though, the government affects a lot of what NHS-E do, so the government has a major effect either way.