NHS England chief faces his biggest challenge

NHS England chief faces his biggest challenge The changing face of government will test Simon Stevens’s delicate balancing act, keeping both the ‘NHS family’ and his new political masters happy

Simon Stevens’s long honeymoon is finally coming to an end. NHS England’s chief executive has in his two and a half years in the job skilfully kept his own side, “the NHS family”, believing in both his vision for the future as the only answer to what some see as the service’s potentially existential problems and, crucially, his ability to deliver. At the same time he has enjoyed strong relationships in government, including in No 10 and the Treasury. Persuading a dubious George Osborne, the former chancellor, last autumn to frontload £3.8bn into this year’s NHS budget of the extra £8bn promised by 2020, to cover deficits and kickstart the belated implementation of 2014’s Five Year Forward View, was Stevens at his influential best. Continue reading... The Guardian