James Wild MP has welcomed the Prime Minister’s plan to scrap NHS England, highlighting the need for reforms to cut bureaucracy and improve healthcare. However, he has urged the Health Secretary to ensure these changes lead to faster decision-making, particularly for critical projects like the Queen Elizabeth Hospital (QEH) in King’s Lynn.
James criticised the current complex approval process for hospital developments and pressed for swift approval of QEH’s multi-storey car park business case. In response, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Wes Streeting MP, committed to cutting red tape and streamlining processes.
With NHS England set to be scrapped, James made clear these reforms must deliver real improvements for patients and staff with QEH as a key test of their success.
James Wild MP said:
“My constituents are particularly concerned about the very bureaucratic approvals process for the new hospitals programme—through investment committees, then the regional NHSE team, the a department, then NHS capital assurance, then a joint investment committee, then the Treasury and then, finally, Ministers. Can the Secretary of State guarantee that this decision, which I welcome, will speed up that process, and that the business case for the multi-storey car park at the Queen Elizabeth hospital in King’s Lynn will be approved so that work starts this year?”
The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, Wes Streeting MP, replied:
“The hon. Gentleman makes a fair challenge on the bureaucratic nature of decision-making. We are working with Treasury Ministers and colleagues across Government to take an axe to that unnecessary bureaucracy.”
