Sajid Javid, Health Secretary is planning to establish academy-style hospitals in order to address post-pandemic wait lists. This follows a study that suggests managers of the NHS who are box-ticking have less discretion than their counterparts working in the private sector.
Blairite academy will provide a model for reorganization to grant well-run hospitals more autonomy and to force failing trusts to improve.
A new class of ‘reform trust’ will be established to deal with the ‘huge’ variation in performance across the health service, according to The Times.
In a whitepaper, Mr Javid will outline the plans which are still in early stages.
Pictured earlier in the month by Mr Javid White paper by the health secretary to outline plans for an academy-style system of hospitals. It will give hospital managers more autonomy and force failing trusts into improvement.
Although it is not clear if leading NHS managers, or outside sponsors could manage chains of hospitals, this remains to be determined.
The planned shake-up comes on the tail of a new study that suggests employing more health managers or paying them higher salaries does not improve the quality of NHS hospitals.
People with many high-paid bosses are more likely to suffer from poor finances and long wait lists.
Research suggests that this could be due to the fact that NHS managers tend to spend less time trying to improve staff performance than they do on paperwork.
The researchers at London School of Economics noted that these leaders are less flexible than those in the private industry.
Sajid Javid, Health Secretary to the King’s College Hospital in London, with NHS staff earlier this month. Last year, he told MPs he’d be “watchful for waste and wokery” as he gave the NHS an unprecedented funding boost.
Sajid Javid (Health Secretary) told MPs in 2013 that he will be “watchful for any waste” as he granted the NHS record funding.
These comments led to the speculation that there might be a reduction in highly paid managers, so more money can be used for patient care.
Former vice chief of the defence staff Sir Gordon Messenger was named by Mr Javid to oversee a complete overhaul of NHS management.
General who led Royal Marines’ invasion in Iraq has been asked by the NHS to examine how it can improve efficiency and care.
A study has shown that increasing the number of health managers and paying higher salaries doesn’t improve quality in NHS hospitals. (file photo).
LSE published a study on 129 hospitals trusts that was published in Journal of Applied Public Economics. It looked at financial situation, emergency and elective waiting times, and death.
The number of trust managers employed by each trust and their respective amounts spent was also compared.
Economists stated that there was no correlation between their measures of quality management input and managerial quantity.
“Furthermore we found no association between our five measures of hospital performance and quantity of managerial input.”
The authors added that this holds regardless of whether we use managerial input in the form of number of managers, or management expenditures.
According to researchers, there is also limited variation in salary and pensions for NHS managers. That means that it is difficult to find exceptional good or bad managers who can do a lot of damage to the overall performance of hospitals.
Chris Hopson of NHS Providers (which represents health trusts) stated that those in the most difficult roles should get similar rewards to those managing school academies.
Those leading of large chains have attracted salaries as high as £450,000.
The highest paid hospital chief executives are earning as much as £300,000.