Ex-health secretary to lead DHSC board

"Big reforms" are needed for the NHS, says New Labour-era minister Alan Milburn
Milburn (centre) at a meeting of Tony Blair's cabinet in 2002. Photo: PA Images/Alamy Stock Photo

A former health secretary has been appointed to lead the Department of Health and Social Care’s board.

Alan Milburn, who led the health department for four years under Tony Blair’s New Labour between 1999 and 2003, is now lead non-executive lead non-executive director on DHSC’s board.

Announcing the appointment, health secretary Wes Streeting said Milburn’s “unique expertise and experience will be invaluable”, citing his “outstanding track record of delivering better care for patients”.

The appointment comes ahead of a major policy speech later this week in which Streeting is expected to set out how the NHS should use its funding more effectively.

As a health minister and then secretary of state under Blair, Milburn brought in dramatic reforms, including privatising more services and the introduction of NHS foundation trusts.

Milburn later said the reforms had given “more choice to patients”, with greater sums paid to hospitals “that were doing more, rather than paying everyone the same”. In a 2021 interview with the Chopper’s Politics podcast, shortly after then-prime minister Boris Johnson had announced a National Insurance hike to generate more funding to the NHS – which was later scrapped – Milburn said he was worried that he did not “see the same plan for reform from the current government”.

"You only really get the money to work if, alongside the resources, you're doing the right reforms. The answer is that the money does help, but it's not enough. And that's when the big reforms happened,” he said.

Following his appointment as DHSC's lead NED, Milburn said he had "never seen the NHS in a worse state", having worked in health policy for three decades. Milburn set up AM Consulting, which advises private healthcare companies, in 2007 and has had a string of advisory and non-executive appointments to companies including Lloyds Pharmacy.

"Big reforms will be needed to make it fit for the future," his statement added.

He has also called for called for “cultural change” in the health service, adding: “People have got to stop thinking that the answer to the NHS problem is simply more and more money.”

In an interview with The Times, Milburn said that when he was health secretary, the Treasury agreed to increase the NHS budget by more than 7% each year for five years, but health department officials told him “it wasn’t enough”.

“If that mentality still exists, it needs to change, pronto,” he said. “That’s not the world that we’re in, it’s not the world that we can be in, and I would say it’s not the world that we should be in.”

When Milburn was last at the health department, the NHS’s budget increased rapidly and waiting lists fell. He told The Times yesterday the health service is now facing a “different fiscal climate”.

“If you’ve broadly got less resourcing than then, you’ve got to do more reforming than then,” he said.

Streeting said Milburn's reforms had "helped deliver the shortest waiting times and highest patient satisfaction in the history of the NHS".

"This government has inherited a broken health service with some of the longest waiting times and lowest patient satisfaction in history. I am delighted to welcome Alan to the department board, where he will offer advice on turning the NHS around once again," he added.

Milburn's statement added: "I am confident this government has the right plans in place to transform the health service and the health of the nation. I’m looking forward to working with them to achieve that mission."

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