NHS CHIEF QUITS AND HEADS TO LORDS

THE head of NHS England Sir Simon Stevens is to stand down after seven years.

Sir Simon will leave at the end of July and become a peer, having overseen the country’s hugely successful rollout of the Covid vaccination campaign.

Among the favourites to replace him is Amanda Pritchard, the NHS’s chief operating officer and daughter of a vicar, who would be the first female boss.

Sir Simon had intended to leave last year but agreed to stay on during the pandemic. Announcing his departure yesterday, he said it had been a ‘privilege’ to lead the NHS during some of its toughest challenges.

Sir Simon, who joined the NHS in 1988 on its graduate manager programme, was knighted for his services to health in 2020.

He will join the House of Lords

and is understood to be taking a career break before starting his next job. Boris Johnson said: ‘Sir Simon has led the NHS with great distinction for the past seven years.

‘I want to thank him for his dedicated service throughout – but especially when facing the extraordinary pressures of the past year, and for his huge contribution to our vaccine rollout.’ Health Secretary Matt Hancock said: ‘Throughout his tenure Sir Simon Stevens has been a steadfast and sage leader for our

National Health Service, and that has been especially true during this most testing period in NHS history.’

In a message to staff yesterday, Sir Simon, who is married with two children, said: ‘I started work for the NHS as on its 40th birthday in 1988, and will leave this job as it turns 73.

‘Joining the health service was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, eventually followed three decades later by the privilege of leading the NHS through some of the toughest challenges in its history.’