‘World’s biggest quango’: The history of NHS England and what its abolition may look like

Getty/TkKurikawa

By Daniel Pye

Doctors.net.uk looks back at why the national commissioning body was proposed in the first place and what the future of the NHS in England may be once it returns to full ministerial control.

The board that would become NHS England was first announced in 2010 under former Conservative health secretary Andrew Lansley. Less than 2 decades later, the project will come to an end.

It will mark the end of Lansley’s vision for the health service - first outlined when the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition was in power. Its original purpose was to take the day-to-day commissioning and, to a degree, the management away from politicians.

The current Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, announced on 13 March that NHSE is to be brought back into the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) within 2 years.

Health secretary Wes Streeting said: “This is the final nail in the coffin of the disastrous 2012 reorganisation, which led to the longest waiting times, lowest patient satisfaction and most expensive NHS in history.”