NHS England still hasn’t launched a voluntary redundancy scheme, despite Labour claiming to have “abolished” the quango back in March. In response to a request from Guido’s FOI unit, the somehow-still-alive NHS England admitted:
“The voluntary redundancy scheme has not been officially opened yet, therefore no requests have been received so we are not able to estimate a total cost of severance payments associated with voluntary redundancies.”
Co-conspirators will remember the wide praise when Starmer pledged to cut around 7,000 jobs by scrapping the quango. Fast forward eight months, staffing costs have gone up, and there are no voluntary redundancies…
Meanwhile, the Treasury is reportedly blocking £1.3 billion in redundancy payments unless Wes Streeting agrees to fund higher medicine prices promised to Donald Trump. Another potemkin ‘axing’ of a quango…
Asked about briefings that Wes Streeting and Andy Burnham were plotting to replace him, Starmer said:
“My message would be very much that every minute that we are not talking about the cost of living, and straining every sinew to ensure that those that need our help in relation to the cost of living and feeling better off, and having a better health service, and feeling safer and more secure in their community, is a minute wasted.”