Boris Johnson plans radical shake-up of NHS in bid to regain more direct control – The Guardian

Boris Johnson is planning a radical and politically risky reorganisation of the NHS amid government frustration at the health services chief executive, Simon Stevens, the Guardian has learned.
The prime minister has set up a taskforce to devise plans for how ministers can regain much of the direct control over the NHS they lost in 2012 under a controversial shake-up masterminded by Andrew Lansley, the then coalition government health secretary.
The Prime Ministers Health and Social Care Taskforce made up of senior civil servants and advisers from Downing Street, the Treasury and the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) is drawing up proposals that would restrict NHS Englands operational independence and the freedom Stevens has to run the service.
In the summer, the taskforce will present Johnson with a set of detailed options to achieve that goal, and that will be followed by a parliamentary bill to enact the proposals, it is understood.
The options put forward to the prime minister will be about how the government can curb the powers of NHS England and increase the health secretarys powers of direction over it, so that he doesnt have to try to persuade Simon Stevens to do something, said a source with knowledge of the plans.

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