Two experts join DHSC to lead 10-year reform plan

Two health policy experts are joining government to help draw up a 10-year plan for health.

King’s Fund policy director Sally Warren is joining the Department of Health and Social Care to lead development of the new strategy, which was proposed by Labour before the election.

Meanwhile, Blair-era special adviser Paul Corrigan has already been brought into the department as a strategy adviser, mostly working on the 10-year plan.

Ms Warren has been King’s Fund policy director since 2019. She has previously worked as director of social care at the DHSC and deputy chief inspector for social care at the Care Quality Commission, and during her time at the Fund has been a vociferous champion for social care improvement and reform.

She said: “It is a time of great challenge for health and care services but also great opportunity. I am looking forward to working with a wide range of partners in the sector and with people and communities to grasp these opportunities in my new role.”

Ms Warren will be “working closely across both DHSC and NHS England”, the King’s Fund said, and it is understood the strategy team for the plan will be jointly hosted across the two.

The King’s Fund said chief analyst Siva Anandaciva and assistant policy director Alex Baylis would step up as interim co-directors of policy while they recruit a permanent replacement.

Meanwhile, Professor Corrigan, who advised Labour health secretaries during the 2000s, as well as working as a health policy aide in Number 10, advised Wes Streeting while he was in opposition and has already joined the department in a temporary civil service capacity.

He has been a critic of the health service’s current financial regime and approach to performance management. He argued the current financial regime “does not encourage better performance”.

“At the end of the year, trusts that have made a surplus are expected to hand over that surplus to trusts that have made a deficit,” he wrote earlier this year. “Crucially, this undermines their incentive to do the hard work of ending the year with a surplus.”

He also blogged extensively last year about how to develop a long-term plan for health.

Elsewhere, speaking to the Health Foundation, Professor Corrigan highlighted the service’s growth in staff and fall in productivity in recent years.

“When someone says ‘where’s the money going to come from?’, my answer is ‘we thought we’d use the stuff that’s there.’” He also said he thought there would be a “new form of spending flow in order to prioritise prevention and primary care”.

It has also been reported that former health secretary Alan Milburn, who drove through reforms to introduce greater competition in the health service between 1999 and 2003, will return to work with Mr Streeting, although it is not clear in what role. Potential roles including overseeing development of the 10-year plan, or leading the government’s health “mission”.