The head of the NHS in England is under fresh fire after a second influential group of MPs in barely 12 hours accused her of lacking the “drive and dynamism” to radically reform the service.
The cross-party Commons health and social care committee criticised Amanda Pritchard, the chief executive of NHS England, after taking detailed evidence from her on Wednesday morning.
In an unusual move, the health committee issued a statement about Pritchard’s performance, during which MPs were left “exasperated” and visibly frustrated by the vague and rambling answers she and two senior colleagues gave.
“Following today’s report by the public accounts committee, this morning’s evidence session was an opportunity for NHS leadership to prove their drive and dynamism,” said Layla Moran, the Liberal Democrat MP who chairs the committee.
“Regrettably, we were left disappointed and frustrated. We had hoped for a sharpness in witnesses’ responses but were exasperated by the lengthy and diffuse answers that were given to us and will be writing to them to seek the clarity that we expected to hear in the evidence session.”
The statement came hours after MPs on the public accounts committee (PAC) published a scathing report that aired their serious doubts about Pritchard’s ability to lead the transformation of the health service that ministers have pledged to drive through.
There has been speculation at senior levels of the NHS that Pritchard’s three and a half years in charge may be drawing to a close.
One senior source said that relations between NHS England and the department of health and social care were good for several months after Labour took power in July but have become “difficult” and “toxic” since the budget last October. Despite the NHS being handed a £22bn boost over the next two years, it has said the extra money is not enough to power the transformation that Streeting wants.
The PAC accused senior figures in both NHS England and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) of being “complacent” about the degree of change needed to get the NHS back on its feet and of lacking the fresh ideas needed. Several MPs on the health committee put questions to Pritchard, her deputy, Julian Kelly, and England’s chief nursing officer, Duncan Barton, about a number of its key findings.
The health secretary, Wes Streeting, has previously expressed confidence in Pritchard, who is closely involved in the development of the government’s 10-year plan to modernise the NHS. “He still retains full confidence in her,” a senior Whitehall source said.
NHS England responded to Moran’s criticism by explaining that the publication on Thursday of the NHS’s latest annual planning guidance – the priorities the DHSC has told it to focus on in 2025-26 – made it difficult for her to give as much detail as she would have liked about plans to overhaul the way the service delivers care.
“Tomorrow, as agreed with government, we will be issuing our planning guidance setting out our next steps and targets, meaning we could not share as much information with the committee as we would have liked,” an NHS England spokesperson said.
In Wednesday’s appearance, Pritchard also fuelled a growing row over the future of women’s healthcare by admitting that the NHS “doesn’t always have the needs of women at its heart”. Her remark came as the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), which represents doctors specialising in women’s health, urged Streeting not to let NHS England abandon guaranteed funding for the network of women’s health hubs it has set up in recent years.
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The health secretary is expected to remove the duty on the NHS to fund those dedicated services when the DHSC publishes the planning guidance. The Times reported last weekend that the document would tell the NHS to prioritise improving key treatment waiting time targets over providing better care for certain groups of patients. NHS ambitions in the areas of women’s health and learning disabilities would be relaxed as part of that switch, it said.
In her letter on Wednesday to Streeting, the RCOG’s president, Dr Ranee Thakar, told him of doctors’ “deep concern” at the loss of automatic funding for women’s health hubs. Any such move would be “self-defeating”, given their proven success in reducing demand for hospital-based care, and “will result in a deterioration in women’s health”, she added.
Jon Sparkes, the chief executive of the charity Mencap, has also voiced his concern about the potential axing of a promise that 75% of people with learning disabilities will receive an annual health check. “Reports suggesting that critical NHS goals, such as ensuring annual health checks for people with a learning disability, are at risk of being scrapped could have deadly consequences,” he said.
“Even when resources are tight, addressing waiting times and ensuring people with a learning disability are receiving adequate healthcare should never be pitted against each other.
“People with a learning disability are currently dying, on average, up to 23 years earlier than the general population. Scrapping targets for vital interventions like annual health checks – where existing and potential health conditions can be identified and treated early on – will only make this gap wider.”
