Behan made full member of NHS England board

Former Care Quality Commission chief Sir David Behan has been appointed as a full member of NHS England’s board.

Sir David, currently chair of Health Education England, was made an “associate non executive director” of NHS Improvement in 2019, so took part in NHS England and Improvement board meetings.

However, NHS England chair Richard Meddings — appointed earlier this year — has now asked Sir David be made a full non-executive director for continuity, as NHSE and HEE move towards a merger.

Sir David will take on full NED status on a 16-month term, running from 1 September to 31 December 2023. This means he will be on NHSE’s board when it is due to formally subsume HEE, in April 2023.

Sir David has been chair at the education and training agency since December 2018 after he stepped down as chief executive of the Care Quality Commission in the summer of 2018 after six years in the post. Previously, he was a senior adult social care leader in national and local government.

Another HEE board member is also on the NHSE board; Sir Andrew Morris was appointed as a non-executive at HEE last month for a year, or until the organisation is disestablished upon its merge into NHSE.

Sir Andrew is a deputy chair of NHSE having been appointed to NHS Improvement’s board in the summer of 2018. DHSC also announced today that his term on NHSE’s board will be extended to 24 March 2025.

NHSE has begun a process to reduce jobs across itself, HEE and NHS Digital (which it is also merging with) by at least 6,000, although some of the reduction will be accounted for by posts which are currently vacant. The combined vacancy rate of the organisations in June was 15 per cent, NHSE has said — amounting to about 3,000 posts.