All articles by Alastair McLellan
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LeaderUsing the patient to smash the NHS begging bowl
This government’s reform of the NHS is best understood as a drive to reconfigure the economics of the public sector – which is increasingly dominated by healthcare spending. This will give the campaign of change a distinctly different flavour to the recovery mission Labour undertook during the first decade of ...
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LeaderThe government will pay for its mistreatment of ICB and NHSE staff
If you are a) an NHS employee who works as a commissioner or in a system role, and b) have been only moderately unlucky, you might have spent a good part of the past 15 years wondering if you would still have a job in a few months’ time, inundated ...
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LeaderWhat the centre really expects of ICBs, trusts and regions in 2026
If HSJ were in a betting mood, we would lay a large sum on the re-organisation of integrated care boards stretching on well into 2026-27.
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NewsExclusive: Mackey’s trust gets league table upgrade after last-minute data correction
The trust led by NHS England chief executive Sir Jim Mackey was promoted from the third to the second “segment” of the new provider league table following a last-minute correction to one of the data points which underpin the rankings, HSJ can reveal.
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NewsNHSE now ‘treating us like grown-ups’ say leading trust CEOs
A group of the country’s leading trust chief executives have praised the approach taken by the new NHS England leadership but have warned that unrealistic expectations about financial performance may sour the relationship.
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NewsTrust CEOs ‘unshackled’ by reduction in ICB role
Leading trust CEOs have welcomed the greater role given to providers in the wake of the decision to narrow the focus of integrated care boards but questioned whether ICBs have a long-term role.
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LeaderWhy Claire Murdoch quit
It is to the former national director for mental health Claire Murdoch’s credit that she stuck with her role for more than a year under the current government.
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NewsExclusive: Regulator CEO resigns
The chief executive of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, Sam Roberts, is to stand down at Christmas.
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NewsExclusive: 10-Year Plan published without delivery chapter
The government’s 10-Year Health Plan has been published without a planned chapter on how the changes it proposes will be delivered.
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NewsExclusive: NICE to remove approval from scores of drugs for first time
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence will withdraw its backing for a large number of drugs and other interventions which now offer poor value for money in an unprecedented move set to be revealed in tomorrow’s 10-Year Health Plan, HSJ has learned.
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LeaderCSUs are dead, long live the SSU
The commissioning support unit (CSU) has had a strange history – it has also lasted much longer than your average non-hospital NHS organisation.
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NewsRevealed: The 10-Year Plan vision for FTs and ICBs
A new operating model proposed by the government’s 10-Year Health Plan will radically reform the role and governance of foundation trusts and integrated care boards.
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LeaderWe have seen the government’s 10-Year Health Plan: it is a mess
The latest draft of the government’s 10-Year Health Plan is based on weak assertions about funding, and fails to address the practicality of reform, says HSJ editor Alastair McLellan.
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LeaderThe NHS reformers must now prove their case
To visit the 2025 NHS ConfedExpo was like attending the kind of music festival which seeks to celebrate a previous decade – in this case, the first of this century
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NewsMackey’s men dominate the 2025 Top 50 CEO rankings
When Sir Jim Mackey took over as NHS England’s last chief executive, he picked four fellow acute trust CEOs to help him lead the service over the next two years.
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LeaderThe return of NICE
Amidst the state of permanent revolution which has afflicted the NHS in the 21st century, there has been one constant: the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence.
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NewsNew technology should be paid for ‘like medicines’, says NICE chief executive
The purchase of approved digital products and services used for diagnosing and treating NHS patients should be reimbursed centrally, the chief executive of the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence has told HSJ.
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LeaderStreeting is Lansley reborn
The government’s abandonment of its stricture against a top-down reorganisation would be breathtaking if it was not so tragic.
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LeaderWhat the abolition of NHSE means for the service’s leaders
A few hours after Sir Jim Mackey told trust CEOs that NHS England was to be abolished, its outgoing chair Richard Meddings held his leaving do in the same room.
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NewsMackey must be Streeting’s ‘chief adviser’, says ex-NHSE chief exec
It is essential new NHS England chief executive Sir Jim Mackey becomes the health secretary’s “chief policy adviser”, according to the only person to have run the service from the top of NHSE and within the Department of Health.