Wes Streeting faced a backlash from health leaders, unions and his own backbenchers after announcing tough NHS reforms to root out “rotten apples”.
The Health Secretary unveiled plans to sack poorly performing managers and rank hospitals in league tables during a speech at the NHS Providers conference in Liverpool.
He told delegates he was determined to stop bad leaders being quietly “brushed aside…and then magically reincarnated somewhere else”.
But the Royal College of Nursing ’s executive director for England, Patricia Marquis, warned against pitting NHS staff against each other.
She said: “We should not be tolerating poor management but scapegoating trust leaders for underinvestment and systemic failures is not the solution.
“Tables and rankings without addressing root causes could undermine public confidence.”
The Society of Radiographers’ Dean Rogers acknowledged the need to improve accountability but said there was “very little evidence to show that naming and shaming trusts would address this.
“Evidence in education shows that this kind of approach instead leads to unsustainable pressure, more burnout and little evidence of higher standards or greater efficiency.”
Labour MP Diane Abbott wrote on X that Mr Streeting’s “cascade of abuse of NHS managers and medics is a pretext for further and faster privatisation”.
She added: “Just yesterday NHS chiefs told Streeting they have not been given sufficient resources to meet his waiting list targets. They are right – they have not.
“Demanding unreachable targets when funds are inadequate will just deepen the crisis in the NHS.”
And Dr Kristian Niemietz, editorial director at the Institute of Economic Affairs, called the plans “reheated Blair-era reforms”, reminiscent of the star rating system introduced for NHS trusts in the early 2000s.
He added: “Those reforms had some success back in their day, but it is not quite clear what exactly Streeting’s measures would add to that now.”
Mr Streeting also insisted he was “not in the business of public humiliation” but snapped at an audience member during a Q&A session.
Eileen Taylor, chair of North East London Foundation Trust (NELFT) which provides services in the Health Secretary’s constituency, invited him to recognise the trust’s work on mental and community health.
She suggested this would help with the Government’s pledge to shift away from focusing too much on hospitals, earning applause from the audience.
Mr Streeting fired back: “I’m very aware of NELFT, not least because NELFT has and continues to appear in the headlines for providing really poor quality care.
“So if we want to name and shame, I’ll do the naming and shaming alongside the naming and appraising.
“I agree with you about the need for the left shift…but I really don’t need lectures from NELFT about recognising the challenges and pressures there because I read about them in the newspapers.”
The Health Secretary also remarked that the NHS was “already living on borrowed time and if a Labour Government can’t improve the NHS, then it simply won’t survive”.
