Retiring health boss launches broadside over NHS reforms

The region’s most senior health boss has launched a scathing attack on the Government’s plans to reform the NHS after stepping down from her role.

Dame Patricia Hewitt resigned as chairman of Norfolk and Waveney’s Integrated Care Board (ICB) after voicing deep concerns about the restructuring of the health service, which was announced by ministers.

These include the abolition of NHS England and the halving of ICB budgets. She also criticised an “appalling treatment of non-medical health staff” by politicians.

In an interview with the Health Service Journal, conducted before her resignation was publicly announced, she said: “It’s an appalling way to treat people – all these deliberate headlines about bureaucrats, and then claims of looking after people, when the reality … is absolutely brutal,” she said.

The 76-year-old, a former Labour health secretary, said abolishing NHS England was not “necessarily bad in principle” but warned that it could lead to an increase in micromanagement from central government.

Labour has said the cuts will slash NHS bureaucracy and divert money to frontline services, while also giving more decision-making powers to ministers.

“If [health and social care secretary Wes Streeting] was to combine abolition with decentralisation, I’d be all for it. But, as it stands, it’s a tightening of the screw, I fear,” she added.

Dame Patricia is one of the most influential figures on health and has been chairman of the Norfolk ICB since 2022. She was awarded a damehood in the New Year’s Honours.

In a statement announcing her retirement, she said: “The last eight years have been the most fulfilling time in my working life.”

A Department for Health and Social Care spokesman said: “The abolition of NHS England will allow us to devolve more resources and responsibilities to the frontline.

“Creating a more efficient, leaner model will help deliver savings of hundreds of millions of pounds a year, which will be reinvested in frontline services.”

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