The latest, shocking statistics show the scale of the decline of NHS performance on almost all of its key targets: but the NHS was floundering BEFORE Covid-19 struck last year.
It needs more staff and more funding to run services, and capital to tackle backlog maintenance and refurbish and re-plan buildings to reopen beds closed during the peak of the pandemic. But questions must also be asked about the senior management of NHS England and its soon to depart chief executive Sir Simon Stevens.
Stevens’ announcement he is to stand down in July has triggered a sharply divided response, ranging from the brickbats of those who believe him to be the evil genius plotting to privatise the NHS, to veneration from fans who see only positives in his record, including crediting him with delivering extra cash, the Covid vaccination programme, and beginning to roll back Andrew Lansley’s disastrous 2012 Health and Social Care Act.
Full story in The Lowdown, 2 May 2021