NHS England covid comms control was ‘truly dreadful’, claims health system leader

Sir Richard Leese, who is chair of Greater Manchester Health and Social Care Partnership, said the tight control of public communications throughout the pandemic had made getting crucial messages to the public a “nightmare”.

However, NHS England medical director Steve Powis rejected Sir Richard’s assertions as inaccurate, and NHSE provided HSJ with a list of media coverage of the NHS attempts to combat the pandemic in the north west, including in GM.

A command and control approach imposed during much of the last year has meant responses to media requests made to local organisations have had to be approved by NHSE.

Sir Richard — who is also the leader of Manchester City Council — told HSJ in an interview: “NHS England’s approach to communications is truly dreadful. They don’t like telling people things.

“We took the view that having a fully informed public might have helped us tackle covid, but that’s not the view we got from NHSE.

“The nature of the crisis we’ve had means command and control was the right thing to do, but it’s how that was exercised that was the problem. It did not empower people at the front line and that’s been a fundamental problem.”

“An informed public are far more likely to look after their own health than an uninformed public. We want people to know what’s going on.”

Sir Richard said there had been particular issues as the North West region faced a rising second wave of the virus last autumn. 

He said: “People’s willingness to comply with guidelines around covid was beginning to weaken and we wanted to get a message out [that] our hospitals were on the edge of falling over. We wanted to have responsible media to be able to go into hospitals and tell that story, but it took us ages to get consent to do that.”

NHSE refuted this point in particular, and listed mutliple items of media coverage featuring the NHS in the north west in the autumn.

However, dozens of local NHS leaders and communications staff have privately expressed similar frustrations to HSJ during the pandemic, particularly in Greater Manchester, which has been operating under a “devolution” agreement with NHSE since 2016. Although there was an understanding that opportunities with national media needed to be managed more closely, there was frustration that organisations did not have greater leeway with their local media.

However, NHSE medical director Professor Powis told HSJ in a statement: “I’m afraid Sir Richard is wrong as it’s obviously not correct that the media haven’t been able to report comprehensively on pandemic pressures within the NHS including in Manchester as the record clearly shows. Anyone watching the TV news or reading a newspaper would be aware that day after day we have thrown open the doors of critical care units and other services the length and breadth of this country to reveal exactly what was happening across the NHS.

“At the same time we have produced careful national public information to remind patients to continue to come forward for care, including in Manchester. During the worst pandemic in a century we have worked to ensure clear, consistent and accurate public communication that spans the whole country not just one local authority – as of course is required by law in a national emergency of this nature.”

Meanwhile, In an opinion piece for HSJ, Sir Richard has written of Greater Manchester’s response to the government’s legislative proposals for integrated care systems.

He wrote: “With legislation expected in 2022, we have a shared and coherent view of our challenges and have been designing a Greater Manchester model, building on the strong partnership that has already taken place at a city-region level and at place, to continue addressing them.

“You can strengthen local governance and accountability, but you can’t legislate for a collaborative culture. Leadership across the system in Greater Manchester and long-standing relationships, which we have invested in deeply in recent years, have acted as enablers really proving their mettle when our health and care system was under stress during the pandemic.”