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LeaderWho should be the next chief executive of the NHS?
Sir Jim Mackey formally signed on as the “transition chief executive” of NHS England earlier this year. His job was three-fold: to stabilise the service’s finances, to speed up the elective recovery and to help ease operational control of the NHS back into the Department of Health after its 13-year ...
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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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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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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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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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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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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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LeaderPlanning round could be a ‘bloodbath’ without a change of course
Daniel Elkeles is to be congratulated on his appointment as the chief executive of NHS Providers. He has proved himself not only a successful CEO, but one who is prepared to speak truth to power and challenge conventional thinking. He is the right person for the job ahead.
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LeaderNHS England reaches a tipping point
The decline of NHS England’s power and influence has been a gradual, not sudden, affair. The direction of travel has been clear to most for at least three years, but HSJ contends the shift in the leadership of the service has, over the last few months, reached a tipping point. ...
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LeaderThe return of grown-up financial planning offers hope for 2025
The most pressing task facing NHS England and the service it oversees in the next three or four months will be to agree on a trust by trust, system by system financial and operational settlement that is both credible and acceptable to both parties and the government.
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LeaderThe return of austerity to the NHS means making tough choices
The implications of last month’s budget are now being fully understood throughout the NHS – and the conclusion of leaders at all levels is that austerity will return to the service for 2025-26.
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LeaderNot having a row about failing managers
There are many better things Wes Streeting could focus on than picking rows with NHS managers, writes HSJ editor Alastair McLellan.
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LeaderMental health is not a priority for this government
This government is fond of declaring it is committed to “three shifts” in health and care policy: hospital to community, analogue to prevention, and treatment to prevention.
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LeaderThe future of NHS England
NHS England is to have a new chair, albeit the current incumbent Richards Meddings has agreed to stick around until March in line with the government’s tactic of getting the previous administration to ‘own’ a very difficult winter.
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LeaderThe NHS’s national clinical leaders need a clearer, stronger role
There are many candidates competing for the title of the most difficult leadership role in the NHS. However, national medical director has one of the most compelling cases, with chief nursing officer coming a close second.
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LeaderAre site chief executives a good idea?
The number of hospital groups is increasing rapidly as HSJ’s analysis earlier this year showed. Their growth has brought about the arrival of a new breed of NHS leader – the site chief executive or managing director who reports to a group chief executive.