Sajid Javid has been warned he has inherited “probably the most daunting in-tray” of big decisions involving the NHS of any health secretary in history after taking over from Matt Hancock.
The British Medical Association (BMA) said the need to complete the Covid vaccination programme, tackle the massive backlog of care that has built up during the pandemic and help choose the new boss of NHS England showed Javid needed to “hit the ground running”.
Labour cast doubt on Javid’s suitability for the post. His record as a Treasury minister during the years of austerity, when NHS funding was kept low despite surging demand, meant that his appointment was “like putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop”, they said.
Hancock’s successor also came under fire from Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser. Soon after Javid was unveiled, Cummings tweeted that he was a “useless” chancellor and “bog standard” minister who would be “awful” for the NHS. He also claimed that the prime minister’s wife, Carrie Johnson, had ensured Javid got the job.
Javid resigned as chancellor in February 2020 in protest at a plan by Cummings to set up a joint team of special advisers between Downing Street and the Treasury. Cummings and Javid repeatedly clashed over issues such as spending.
Dr Chaand Nagpaul, the chair of council at the BMA, said: “Sajid Javid takes on this role with probably the most daunting in-tray that any secretary of state for health has ever inherited and has no option but to hit the ground running.
“With infection rates spiralling, he has the mammoth logistical task of vaccinating enough of the adult population at record speed if further restrictions are to be safely lifted.”
He urged Javid to be honest with the public about how long it would take the NHS in England to treat the 5.1 million people who are waiting for hospital treatment, given how exhausted health workers are after the pandemic.
Javid will also need to be “robust” in his efforts to persuade the Treasury, where he was chancellor of the exchequer from July 2019 until February 2020, to give the NHS “billions” of pounds in extra funding to cut fast-lengthening waiting times.
Jonathan Ashworth, the shadow health secretary, claimed that funding decisions made by Conservative governments in which Javid was a minister during the 2010s meant that he bore some responsibility for the health service’s inability to keep up with the growing need for care.
“The NHS and social care have both faced enormous pressure after years of underfunding and cutbacks. Sajid Javid was a leading advocate and architect of the austerity that contributed to the sky-high waiting lists today.
“Given Sajid Javid’s instincts for slashing services this is like putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop,” said Ashworth.
In brief remarks on his first full day in the post after being appointed on Saturday evening following Hancock’s resignation over his affair with aide Gina Coladangelo, Javid made clear that seeing through the rollout of Covid vaccines was his top priority.
“I’m incredibly honoured to take up the post of health and social care secretary, particularly during such an important moment in our recovery from Covid-19. This position comes with a huge responsibility and I will do everything I can to deliver for the people of this great country.
“I want our country to get out of this pandemic and that will be my most immediate priority,” added Javid, who returns to a key government job after spending almost 17 months on the Conservative backbenches.
Javid will soon have to start steering the first legislation in 11 years to reshape the NHS in England on to the statute books when the controversial health and care bill starts its parliamentary journey, which is expected early next month.
Saffron Cordery, the deputy chief executive of hospital group NHS Providers, said that the bill, the need to get the NHS a good deal in the comprehensive spending review this autumn, and the urgency of the government finally bringing forward detailed plans to reform social care would be key priorities for Javid too.
NHS pay is also looming as a potential problem for the government. The NHS pay review body is due to unveil soon its recommendations amid outcry over the government offering NHS staff what unions have condemned as a “derisory” and “insulting” 1% rise, which has led the Royal College of Nursing to threaten to strike.
“Top of Sajid Javid’s in-tray must be pressing the prime minister to announce a proper pay rise for exhausted NHS workers and fix the staffing crisis in health,” said Christina McAnea, the general secretary of Unison. Opinion polls suggest that the public want to see NHS staff receive a more generous rise, especially after their efforts to combat Covid.
Jackie Williams, Unite’s national officer for health, said Javid had to halt “the accelerating privatisation of services, which manifested itself in its crudest form in the awarding of PPE contracts to the ‘friends’ of the Tory establishment”.
