Almost identical reports in the (£) Times and Daily Mail that Sajid Javid “is planning to set up academy style hospitals,” potentially run by the private sector (coyly described as “outside sponsors”), are clearly much more linked to the task of supplying “red meat” to Tory back bench headbangers than any serious attempt to tackle post-pandemic waiting lists.
They also confirm that Tory politicians, especially bankers like Javid and Rishi Sunak, just don’t get the fact that running an NHS general or teaching hospital is unlike any other management task outside the NHS. This failure was also shared by New Labour ministers who first experimented with privatised management.
Javid’s demonstrated his ignorance by his decision last October to bring in General Sir Gordon Messenger, who led the Royal Marines’ invasion of Iraq, to lead an overhaul of NHS management.
Full story in The Lowdown, 19 January 2022
