Matt Hancock warned against taking 'excessive' powers over NHS
An NHS chief has warned the Health Secretary against trying to take "excessive" powers to control the health service as he says such a move "can't be right".
Chris Hopson, the chief executive of NHS Providers representing NHS trusts, said any new powers assumed by ministers must be "very tightly defined".
A Government White Paper published earlier this year would give the Health Secretary greater control over NHS England as part of a wide-reaching reorganisation of health and social care.
It is expected to strip the health service of its independence and combine into a body which is accountable to the Health Secretary.
It comes amid reported tensions in the early days of the coronavirus pandemic between ministers and senior officials at NHS England which has been operationally independent since 2013.
Ministers are understood to have been frustrated after their requests for key NHS data went unanswered, but senior health figures later announced the figures themselves.
Giving evidence to the Commons Health and Social Care Committee, Mr Hopson said the Government had yet to set out its detailed proposals.
But, he stressed it was "absolutely fundamental" that the operational independence of the service was maintained in certain key areas.
"It can't be right for a secretary of state just to stop on their own initiative a very carefully and well worked up local configuration plan because he or she is coming under inappropriate pressure from let's say a fellow Cabinet minister or a speaker of the House of Commons," he said.
"It would be inappropriate for a secretary of state to direct that whole services should be effectively farmed out to the private sector. It would be wrong for the secretary of state to have the power to hire and fire NHS chairs and chief executives.
"It would also be inappropriate for them to have the power to give in to very extensive lobbying by single condition pressure groups to overturn Nice's (the regulator) guidance on how drugs should be used."
"We just need to be very careful not to allow single, individual politicians - who inevitably, quite understandably, have got party political interests - excessive power over exactly how the NHS operates day-to-day," he added.
Hugh Alderwick, Head of Policy, The Health Foundation, added the Government is committing “ongoing political failure” by failing to address social care reform in the White Paper.
He told the Committee: "The White Paper is pretty silent on reform on social care in England, there's some limited policy measures in there which without additional funding actually look a little perverse in places.
"But (it is) such a long way from adding up to comprehensive reform. I think we all know the current system is a threadbare safety net, it is struggling to provide effective support to lots of vulnerable people and their families.
"It is ongoing political failure, to be frank, which the Government appears to be choosing to prolong, we’ve been promised reform lots of times, its been ducked lots of times.”
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: “Integration is a fundamental part of the proposals in our Health and Care White Paper.
We want to make it easier for health and care services to work together at all levels, while prioritising prevention, and giving more power to the NHS, not taking it away.”
