Academy-style hospitals will be set up to improve patchy NHS leadership under a shake-up planned by Sajid Javid to deal with post-pandemic waiting lists.
The health secretary is formulating the reorganisation to give well-run hospitals more freedom as well as forcing failing trusts to improve. A new class of “reform trust” will be established as Javid signals an appetite for wide-ranging changes to deal with a “huge” variation in performance across the health service.
Modelling reforms on the Blairite academies programme could lead to failing hospitals being forcibly turned into reform trusts, as happens with schools that are rated inadequate. It is possible that chains of hospitals will be run by leading NHS managers, or even outside sponsors, although this is yet to be decided.