NHS: Reorganisation

Baroness Thornton Excerpts

Thursday 24th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Earl Howe]

My Lords, I would do best to refer my noble friend to the impact assessment, which provides a detailed breakdown of the figures that I have just given. I acknowledge that we have had to make assumptions in drawing up the impact assessment. Those can be challenged, and I am aware of the figures that my noble friend has referred to. But I do not believe that changing the figures—and they are bound to change in the nature of the exercise—will make a significant difference to the overall cost. The assumptions made in the modelling are based on the best available evidence that we have at the moment.

[Baroness Thornton]

Among many others, the Conservative MP Sarah Wollaston recently argued in the Daily Telegraph:

“I cannot see that it makes sense to foot the bill for redundancies for the entire middle layer of NHS management only to be re-employing many of them within a couple of years”.

As the Minister has said, the Government’s assessment of the redundancies varies between 600 and 1,200. Can I tempt the Minister to give us his best guess of how many of those redundant managers will be re-employed within the NHS within two years? Indeed, does the Minister think that this is an acceptable use of taxpayers’ money?

[Earl Howe]

We expect that about 60 per cent of management and administrative staff currently employed in PCTs and strategic health authorities will transfer to the new GP consortia or the NHS commissioning board. Those are straight transfers. As for those who leave the service, we have included claw-back arrangements in the redundancy scheme so that, if any employee returns to work for the NHS in England within six months, they will be required to repay any unexpired element of their compensation.