By Andy Ford, chair NW Regional NHS Committee, Unite the Union

Sajid Javid has re-entered ministerial politics, replacing Matt ‘fucking hopeless’ Hancock. Like all Tory politicians, Javid seems full of with airy confidence on dealing with huge issues – the pandemic, a crisis of waiting lists, lifting lockdown restrictions and, by no means least, the low morale in among over-worked and seriously underpaid NHS staff.

Matt Hancock was due to introduce a new Health Bill this month which would include reinstating the ultimate responsibility of the Secretary of State to provide a health service, an obligation that had unbelievably been removed by a previous Tory minister. Hancock had found that during the pandemic he had that responsibility anyway, although not the inclination or control he needed to do it well.

Also, there is the small matter of appointing a new Chief Executive for the NHS. It is reported that Javid has ruled out Dido ‘Disaster’ Harding, after the horrendously expensive and utterly incompetent ‘test and trace’ system. It could be argued that if the Health Minister has responsibility, anyway why do we even need a very highly paid Chief Executive?

Sajid Javid is personally very rich

Javid is personally extremely rich, and his background is in finance, where he was a supposed ‘high-flyer’ in banking, meaning he is someone who made a ton of money in a very short time. On entering politics, he looked after Housing, Communities and Business, before being appointed Chancellor; a post he famously quit after Dominic Cummings convinced Boris Johnson to effectively take control of his department.

Health Service managers have given Javid a cautious welcome but pointed out that he will need to deal with out of control waiting lists and backlogs, a crumbling infrastructure, rock bottom morale, a huge growth in zero length of stay (which may be a way of cooking the books). Then there is the disgracefully low 1% pay award for NHS workers and a predicted shortage of 100,000 nurses by 2030. Then there is the small problem that Javid knows nothing about health and has no Chief Executive to work with. In fact it is clear from his very first comments on the lifting of lockdown that our new ‘Health’ Minister is coming at the new role from the point of view of finance, aiming to lift the lockdown as soon as possible, whatever the science and expert medical opinion says.

Then just for extras is the growing crisis in social care. Javid, in other words, will face the exact same pressures as Hancock – on the one side, scientists, doctors and hospitals who are warning of a third (or fourth) wave of Covid if restrictions are abandoned too soon, and on the other side, Tory backbenchers linked to lobbyists and the tabloids, who want an early reopening at all costs.

Key decisions taken in Downing Street

Under Matt Hancock, it was clear that Downing Street advisors had been increasingly taking the key decisions on the NHS for fear of the high political cost of getting something badly wrong. That being the case, we should ask what precisely is the Secretary of State’s actual role?

Javid will probably will try to carve out some independence for himself – but carefully avoiding getting sacked. However, if he clearly makes himself “the man in charge” any slip-ups will come back to haunt him. That was why Andrew Lansley withdrew the responsibility of the Secretary of State for Health (held since 1948) to provide health services, handing it over instead to a Chief Executive.

As well as all that there is the usual contradiction between all the political promises that have been made – cutting waiting lists or ambulance response times, or even Boris Johnson’s fantasy of 40 new hospitals – and Rishi Sunak’s urgent need to claw back some of the £400 billion he has created out of thin air in the last 15 months.

There are now 4.7m people waiting for elective surgery of one kind or another. surgery and the Tories will need to be aware that they nearly all have a vote. While they are waiting for procedures and operations, rather than relieving the crisis in the NHS, the Treasury are look like fashioning a new round of austerity and cuts. Sajid Javid’s new ministerial career is not going to be an easy ride.

The Labour Party could easily undermine Javid’s cosy honeymoon period, if they were to campaign vigorously for an end to all privatisations and looting of the NHS and its return to being a fully-funded and fully-public service and if it were to campaign for a decent wage for all NHS staff, beginning with full support for a 15 per cent pay rise. On the one hand, the friends and supporters of the Tory Party are getting away with billions at public expense, but on the other hand, NHS staff have got nothing to show for a traumatic and extremely stressful year, other than platitudes and a useless medal from the Queen. That has got to end.