Steve Barclay ‘to tell NHS to scrap targets and focus on key areas’

Health Secretary Steve Barclay will reportedly tell the NHS to scrap some of its targets and focus on cutting wait times for areas including ambulances, operations and GP appointments.

Mr Barclay, who took the Cabinet position in July and is expected to be replaced in the next prime minister’s reshuffle, is giving a speech at the Policy Exchange think tank on Thursday.

The Times and The Daily Telegraph report the Health Secretary will say: “We need fewer priorities with a focus on those that are most scalable.”

Mr Barclay will also criticise “middle managers”, according to The Sun. The paper writes that he will say: “Having so much management is a distraction to the front line.

“Some community nurses spend half their time on admin. Managers need to be helping them – not creating more paperwork.”

It comes after Matthew Taylor, chief executive of the NHS Confederation, said that the health service is in a “terrible situation” where it is facing “more demand than we can deal with”.

He said that the next prime minister should have a “realism reset” and set out how to deal with the “current crisis”.

Mr Taylor told Times Radio that pressures in the system were leading to some appointments being cancelled, and the health service is “often not able to provide the level of service that we want to provide”.

He said: “Unfortunately, given the kinds of pressures that the health service is under, we are having to see appointments cancelled.”