Running the NHS harder than selling underwear, former M&S boss is told

RUNNING the NHS is harder than selling underwear, the head of the health service has said in a rebuke to the former boss of Marks & Spencer.

A review by Lord Rose, the former Marks & Spencer executive chairman, into leadership in the health service suggested there was a lack of “common sense” in the way it was run.

The report, which was ordered by ministers, praised the quality of NHS staff, but it criticised “a chronic shortage of good leaders” and a lack of clear vision.

In an attack on Lord Rose, Simon Stevens, the head of NHS England, said that the “complexity” of managing the health service “more than rivals that of selling underwear”.

Mr Stevens said: “There has been a reduction of 18,000 managerial and administrative staff at the same time as there has been an increase in clinical and front-line professionals.

“It is about the support and public service backing NHS leaders get.

“I don’t think that denigrating the role of the NHS managers contributes to that.

“The complexity of leading that National Health Service more than rivals that of selling underwear.”

It came as new figures revealed that more than 5,500 health workers made redundant by the NHS have been rehired.

Official figures show that one in five of those handed taxpayer-funded pay-offs is now back working for the NHS.

New figures show that of the 26,300 people made redundant since May 2010, 5,568 have been rehired.

A total of 3,700 of them have been handed permanent staff jobs while a further 1,868 have been given fixedterm contracts.