It’s that time when all newspapers fill space with new year predictions. Not to be outdone, Julian Patterson imagines the headlines you can look forward to in the next 12 months

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The 'two minute' NHSE director and other stories from 2024

By Julian Patterson

It’s that time when all newspapers fill space with new year predictions. Not to be outdone, Julian Patterson imagines the headlines you can look forward to in the next 12 months

Departing ICB chief executive a ‘hard act to follow’

Expect to see one of these roughly every week. The departure will almost certainly be for “personal reasons”, a reminder to prurient journalists that it would be in poor taste to ask about the £200m deficit, collapsing local services or persistent rumours of bullying/corruption/incompetence that dogged the chief executive’s tenure.

The chair will issue a statement faintly praising the departee’s commitment and vision but wisely avoiding any reference to their achievements. The tribute will likely mention solid foundations and building relationships, leaving readers to wonder if HSJ has merged with Construction News . In fact, Bob the Relationship Builder will be moving on to a national role (or “haven”) at NHS England – a “secondment” from which they will, of course, never return.

Whichever poor sap replaces them will be first to post an anonymous comment beneath the story declaring that Bob will be a hard act to follow. Within 18 months the replacement will prove themselves wrong – and follow their predecessor out of the door.

NHS told to cut ‘useless’ management jobs

A politician will make a speech calling for all NHS managers to be sacked. Evidence for the proposed cull will include: some managers earn more than the prime minister; the NHS has “record funding” but managers are blowing it all on diversity training and other woke initiatives; NHS dentistry is a disgrace; junior doctors are on strike more often than rail workers; hospitals are falling down.

International comparisons showing that the NHS has fewer managers than other health systems will be dismissed as “misleading”.

The politician will declare that tasks previously performed by managers will be done by AI, after visiting a tech start-up in Basingstoke run by a cousin of Matt Hancock.

The speech will be widely reported in the media. Julia Hartley-Brewer and Isabel Oakeshott will write columns blaming faceless bureaucrats for the fact that they can no longer get a GP appointment.

McKinsey will win a large contract to come up with a strategy for cutting management costs. NHS England will recruit hundreds of managers to operationalise the strategy.

The government will promise that any money saved by getting rid of useless managers will be “diverted to the frontline to improve patient care” as soon as productivity improves, NHS deficits are eradicated or hell freezes over, whichever is the sooner.

In the wake of an unexpected admin crisis, clinical staff will be told to retrain as managers.

In a footnote to the story, HSJ will report that the Basingstoke tech start-up has gone to the wall.

Labour reforms will make the NHS great again

As the country is gripped by election fever, the Labour party will promise to put the NHS back on its feet. Blaming 13 years of Conservative mismanagement for covid, cancer, flaky concrete, militant junior doctors, and global warming; Wes Streeting will set out a programme of radical reforms. Here it is in full:

• Something about face-to-face GP appointments
• Something about waiting lists
• Something about training
• Something about cutting red tape
• Nothing about money or social care

‘NHS meeting all targets’, claims health secretary

The Conservative party will announce that it has developed a vaccine for election fever, an achievement it will attribute to the highly successful exit from the European Union.

The health secretary who succeeds Victoria Atkins’ successor will point to the government’s record on processing asylum applications and fixing the economy. They will release figures to show that all NHS performance targets have been met or exceeded despite evidence from all other sources showing the health service in a state of terminal decline.

The health secretary will explain that the government had made it perfectly clear in the small print that targets would need to be adjusted retrospectively from time to time when circumstances changed – for example when there was an unforeseen general election looming.

NHS England director steps down after two minutes

Someone you have never heard of will be leaving a role you were unaware existed. Amanda Pritchard will declare that so-and-so made an invaluable contribution as head of meaningful change or director of impact. She will wish them well in their next role as a consultant to an overseas technology firm or director of policy insight for a leading think tank. Within a few weeks, the meaningful change department will be abolished through a merger with the relationships directorate. The newly enlarged directorate will be headed by Bob following his conspicuous success as an ICB leader.