Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer has announced plans to abolish NHS England and bring the management of the health service under direct government control. In a speech outlining his vision for civil service reform, Starmer confirmed that the "arms-length body" responsible for overseeing the NHS will be scrapped in an effort to reduce bureaucracy and improve patient care.
The decision, he said, would bring the NHS “back into democratic control” and ensure that funding is redirected to frontline services rather than administrative costs. “I can’t in all honesty explain to the British people why they should spend their money on two layers of bureaucracy," Starmer stated. "That money could and should be spent on nurses, doctors, operations, GP appointments.”
He further emphasized that the move would allow the NHS to focus on cutting waiting times and improving healthcare delivery. “So today I can announce… I am bringing management of the NHS back into democratic control by abolishing the arms-length body NHS England. That will put the NHS back at the heart of government where it belongs, freeing it to focus on patients, less bureaucracy, with more money for nurses. An NHS refocused on cutting waiting times at your hospital.”
NHS England, which currently leads the National Health Service in England, is responsible for statutory functions, regulatory powers, and overseeing service delivery. However, Starmer argued that its existence results in unnecessary duplication of efforts. Addressing a cancer patient during a Q&A session following his speech, he pointed to overlapping administrative roles within NHS England and the Department of Health. “If you can believe it, we’ve got a communications team in NHS England, we’ve got a communications team in the health department of the government; we’ve got a strategy team in NHS England, a strategy team in the government department. We are duplicating things that could be done once.”
By eliminating such redundancies, he said, the government could redirect resources to where they are needed most—on the frontline. “If we strip that out, which is what we are doing today, that then allows us to free up that money to put it where it needs to be, which is the front line,” he added.
Starmer also stressed that power should be shifted to healthcare workers rather than being tied up in excessive bureaucracy. “We want to push power to frontline workers and away from the bureaucracy which often holds them up,” he said.
