Daily Insight: Awkward

Oh to be a fly on the wall when NHS Confederation chief executive Matthew Taylor welcomes Sajid Javid in the green room ahead of the health and social care secretary’s keynote speech to the ConfedExpo 22 conference this morning.

During an exclusive HSJ interview Mr Taylor accused ministers, including Mr Javid, of bashing health service managers and exploiting the culture wars to try to “explain away” the crisis in the NHS instead of facing up to the problems that 12 years of Conservative-led government have created.

The Confed CEO told HSJ: “If you can’t recognise that the fundamental reasons [underpinning why] we face this yawning capacity gap are to do with, particularly, the decade of austerity… then you have to look for other culprits and you end up manager bashing and talking about wokery, because it becomes a way to explain away the reality.”

Mr Taylor, formerly a senior adviser to Tony Blair, also dismissed Mr Javid’s claim that the NHS does not need more money.

These were both home truths which needed delivering. The tone Mr Javid strikes during his speech to the very managers he’s been bashing will be interesting. Will he attack his audience, as some ministers have done in the past (think Theresa May laying down the law to the Police Federation), or will he strike a more consolatory tone?

The truth may well be tied up in the calculus of what better suits his leadership ambitions, but it should be an interesting session all the same. You can of course get unprecedented coverage of ConfedExpo conference right here on HSJ.

Right person, right time?

A looming Care Quality Commission report is looking like bad news for South East Coast Ambulance Service Foundation Trust. It is expected to be critical of the trust’s leadership and could be released as early as Friday.

It would be easy to view the appointment of Siobhan Melia as interim chief executive as a reaction to this forthcoming report. However, Fionna Moore, who has been serving as interim chief executive, is unlikely to be in the CQC’s firing line and seems genuinely popular with staff.

Dr Moore, who has worked in the ambulance sector for over two decades and been an accident and emergency consultant for longer, may just have wanted to step back to her role as medical director rather than continuing as chief executive for a long period while a permanent replacement was recruited.

Ms Melia – the chief executive of Sussex Community Foundation Trust – will take on the role until next April, giving the trust ample time to recruit. Could she then be tempted to apply for the permanent role? Chief executive appointments from outside the ambulance sector are becoming more common and might be just what SECAmb needs after such a disrupted period.