By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Over 10,000 jobs are at stake as UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer says his Labour government will take closer control of England’s ailing National Health Service (NHS), promising to streamline the British state.
On Thursday, Starmer said he would abolish NHS England to “cut bureaucracy” and bring management of the almost 80-year-old health service “back into democratic control”.
The move would lead to several thousand job cuts, saving “hundreds of millions of pounds a year” that would be “reinvested in frontline services”, the government said.
“That money could and should be spent on nurses, doctors, operations, GP appointments,” Starmer said during a visit to northeast England.
The previous Conservative government had established NHS England in 2013 as an arm’s-length body to deliver health services.
But Starmer argued that decisions involving billions of pounds of taxpayer money should be made by central government.
NHS England is financed by the government but runs independently of government interference.
According to government records, NHS England employs about 13,500 staff three times more than the Department of Health.
Health Secretary Wes Streeting said the government was looking at reducing the combined workforce of the two entities by half, implying that nearly 9,500 people could lose their jobs.
The NHS, though revered by most Britons, has been severely impacted in recent years by poor funding and low staff motivation, leading to multiple strikes.
Starmer, who took office in July last year, has vowed to cut waiting times for operations and create more doctors’ appointments.
His NHS announcement forms part of a wider plan to make the British state “more agile”.
Starmer says reducing the size of Britain’s half-a-million-strong civil service and increasing the use of artificial intelligence could save the government £45 billion ($58.3 billion) a year.
