MEDICINE BALLS
Remote control?
HEALTH secretary Wes Streeting will certainly have more power when NHS England is abolished, but will he have any more control?
Despite claiming to be a national body, there is still huge variability in practice and outcome across the NHS, along with thousands of disconnected hierarchies that are nearly impossible to control. Before being elected, David Cameron and Keir Starmer both promised to avoid top-down reorganisations of the NHS. But both succumbed – despite there being no evidence NHS reorganisation ever improves the lot of patients.
Streeting’s best bet may be to keep devolving power to the regions, hoping that local democracy can develop the services needed by local populations without the centre dictating how their money is spent. But integrated care systems (ICS) have also been told to cut management costs by 50 percent and may not be able to take on any extra responsibility. And the health of the poorest is unlikely to be improved by welfare cuts that, according to the Department for Work and Pensions, will push an additional 250,000 people, including 50,000 children, into relative poverty in 2029/30.