Failing NHS bosses warned by Streeting in reform drive

Wes Streeting has warned NHS bosses that they will be sacked and blocked from taking a job in the sector again if their hospitals fail.

- DAVID MADDOX

The health secretary made it clear that he intends to end the culture of NHS executives being fired from one job for failure, only to be given another job at a different trust.

Speaking yesterday, Mr Streeting told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that “where we have poorly performing senior managers, I’ll make no apology for managing those people out, because people know – and this is the guilty secret of the NHS – there are very senior managers who are paid on average let’s not forget £145,000 a year, who are managed out, given a payoff in one trust and then reincarnate in another NHS trust.

“Those might be the rotten apples, and I want to recognise that there are some outstanding leaders right across the NHS, but those rotten apples are unacceptable and give the rest of the profession a bad name.”

The drive for efficiency saw a surprised Mr Streeting compared to X boss Elon Musk who has just been handed a role advising Donald Trump’s proposed Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

But his plans to impose league tables, which his adviser Alan Milburn, tried to introduce 23 years ago when he was health secretary, left another former Tony Blair adviser Matthew Taylor, now chief executive of the NHS Confederation, angry.

He said that “the prospect of more ‘league tables’ will concern health leaders, as these can strip out important underlying information.

“NHS staff are doing their very best for patients under very challenging circumstances and we do not want them feeling like they are being named and shamed. League tables in themselves do not lead to improvement.