Journalist joins DHSC board
A peer who said the NHS needs a “classic management turnaround” has been appointed to the board of the Department of Health and Social Care, alongside two other new directors.
Camilla Cavendish, a former director of policy to David Cameron when he was prime minister, said last year the NHS was a “sprawling quangocracy whose autonomy is curtailed by the centre”.
A contributing editor and columnist at the Financial Times, last year Baroness Cavendish said the health service was a “terrible employer” and urged the government to “stop meddling, raise pay and scour the world for executives with excellent track records”.
In a 2022 review of social care she rejected calls for the NHS to take over social care, saying the health service was not “responsive and human facing”, and was “hierarchical, centralised and not person-centred”.
In her columns Baroness Cavendish has criticised Labour for a lack of a coherent narrative but backed the party’s plans to reform the health service.
She also authored a 2013 review into health and care support workers, and has worked as a non-executive director of the Care Quality Commission.
Her appointment was announced today alongside two other non-executive directors.
They are Naomi Eisenstadt, a former director of the Blair government’s early years initiative Sure Start who currently chairs Northamptonshire Integrated Care Board, and Phil Jordan, a private sector executive who worked as chief information officer at Sainsbury’s and Vodafone.
The government said the appointees would bring “cross-party and wide-ranging experience and will provide strategic guidance to support health and care reforms”.
It follows a clear-out of several DHSC non-executives appointed under the Conservatives, including Doug Gurr, who has since been appointed chair of the Competition and Markets Authority.
In November former health secretary Alan Milburn was appointed lead non-executive director, after months of speculation and informal work with the department.
The public appointments watchdog approved the appointment in July after the department said there had been previous unsuccessful attempts to recruit a lead non-executive, according to correspondence released to HSJ following a freedom of information request.
Ms Eisenstadt became the first director of the Sure Start Unit in 1999 after previously working in the charity sector. She has since advised the Scottish government on poverty and early years interventions, and has previously said NHSE holds too much power over managers’ careers.
Mr Jordan, who the government said would support efforts to modernise healthcare and improve digital infrastructure, currently works as a strategic advisor to Sainsbury’s after a five-year stint as group chief information officer.
The business executive has also led IT projects at Spanish communications firm Telefónica and worked as chief information officer at Vodafone.