Theresa May has now returned from her walking holiday in the Swiss Alps to a red box filled to bursting with G20 summit preparation, Hinkley Point, and the small task of managing Britain’s withdrawal from the EU. At a recent Brexit seminar with Health Investor magazine, I spoke on what the change in tide means for healthcare.
The NHS may have featured predominantly in the Brexit debate but Theresa May’s views on healthcare have been far from front and centre. As is the case for most MPs, she’s fought for better provision of local services but outside of Maidenhead she has said astonishingly little about health.
We know that in the past she has pledged support to the mentally ill in police custody and in 2013 she spoke of the merits of breaking down “the artificial divide between private and public sectors.” But it remains to be seen how this thinking, and indeed her own personal experience of living with a long-term condition, will permeate her premiership.
It’s likely that the health narrative will form part of May’s much wider social reforming agenda; certainly May’s first speech on the steps of Downing Street saw her commit to improving life expectancy and addressing mental health issues as part of improving life chances.
Fiona Hill, May’s joint Chief of Staff, will likely be advising May to take a pragmatic approach to healthcare policy. Having worked for Andrew Lansley, Hill will be all too familiar with the pitfalls of communicating large-scale ideological reforms. Indeed, the watered-down obesity strategy announced last week – where it has been reported that May overruled Jeremy Hunt and said the economy must take priority – sends a signal that anti-business health initiatives are off the cards.
We’ll need to wait for the Autumn Statement for a better indication of how May and Philip Hammond plan to play the NHS. Performance of the post-Brexit economy will ultimately dictate public sector spending decisions. Equally, May won’t want too many domestic fires on her hands: a difficult winter or a Brexit inspired NHS staffing crisis could mean funding for healthcare before too long or in the run up to the next general election.
Meanwhile at the Department of Health, Jeremy Hunt defied expectations – and indeed Twitter – to become one of the longest serving Health Secretaries in NHS history.
As May’s agenda becomes overshadowed by Brexit negotiations, it’s likely she’ll leave Jeremy Hunt to get on with the job at hand – steering a cash-strapped health service towards a seven-day NHS. Keeping Hunt in his role may prove a shrewd move which sees him push through a controversial junior doctors’ contract before being shuffled on … the controversy dying down with him and May remaining relatively untarnished by the political ramifications of an affair instigated by her predecessor.
And what of the new members of the health team settling into their new offices at Richmond House? Nicola Blackwood will command respect given her chairmanship of the Science and Technology Committee and in particular her recent inquiry into the impact of Brexit on science and research. Both her parents also worked for almost 30 years in the NHS so she will be confident on NHS workforce issues. David Mowat and Philip Dunne bring accounting and financial experience with them which could be valuable if Hunt is forced into honest conversations with the public about healthcare funding in the autumn.
While Theresa May has had little involvement in healthcare during her career so far, the challenges the service faces and its importance to voters means we can expect it to rocket up her agenda. After all, Jeremy Hunt won’t be Health Secretary forever.