Responding to the announcement that Amanda Pritchard is the new
Chief Executive for NHS England and NHS Improvement, the chief
executive of NHS Providers, , said:
“NHS Providers, and the wider NHS, will strongly welcome Amanda’s
appointment. Her unique combination of experience in leading one
of the largest and most successful NHS trusts in England, being
the Chief Executive of NHS Improvement and Chief Operating
Officer of NHS England/Improvement, and having worked in Number
10 Downing Street, ideally equip her for this vital role.
“Over the last two years, trust leaders have welcomed Amanda’s
calm, team oriented, and effective national operational
leadership of the NHS through one of the most challenging periods
in its history. She has a deep and strong connection with NHS
frontline leaders and staff which will be much needed given the
scale of the challenge ahead. It is also particularly pleasing to
see a female NHS Chief Executive appointed for the first time in
the service’s 73 year history.
“The challenges ahead are formidable but the NHS has shown, in
its response to the pandemic, an extraordinary capacity to
innovate and adapt at pace whilst maintaining the collective,
compassionate and caring ethos that places the NHS at the heart
of our national life. These are firm foundations from which to
meet the coming challenges.
“The immediate tasks for Amanda will be to lead the NHS through
the current wave of COVID-19, deliver the next phase of the
vaccination campaign and ensure the NHS is able to provide the
care patients rightly expect through the coming winter. This will
require a rapidly agreed, realistic, NHS budget settlement for
the second half of the financial year. It is also vital that,
from the outset, Amanda maintains the momentum on tackling health
inequalities, race inequality and improving diversity and
inclusion in the NHS.
"Looking further to the future, the NHS will need to continue
driving improvements in patient care and health outcomes across a
range of different areas where we know the NHS needs to improve.
These include cancer and cardiac care, mental health and
providing more care closer to home. This will require significant
change and innovation.
“At the same time, the NHS will need to be properly configured to
cope with COVID-19, and its consequences, longer term. This will
mean an effective plan to treat care backlogs and the new
pressures that COVID-19 has brought in mental health and long
Covid. More fundamentally, we will need a root and branch review
of the long term capacity the NHS needs including a robust long
term workforce plan.
“The spending review settlement expected in the Autumn will be
key, as will be work to ensure a properly funded and sustainable
solution to the crisis in social care, without which the NHS can
never flourish. At the same time Amanda will need to oversee the
successful creation and development of the 42 new integrated care
systems, established formally through the new Health and Care
Bill.
“Lord Stevens has been an exceptional NHS Chief Executive and
everyone in the NHS will want to thank him for his outstanding
leadership. It is fitting that Amanda, as his Deputy for the last
two years, should be appointed as his successor”.
