New NHS head hired from private sector

The National Health Service has hired as its new head a former Labour adviser who currently works for a US private healthcare company.

Simon Stevens is president of global health and group executive vice-president at UnitedHealth and was chief executive of UnitedHealth’s Medicare company.

Stevens, who will take over at the NHS when current chief executive Sir David Nicholson retires next April, is also a former Labour adviser, having worked with Alan Milburn when he was health secretary and then Tony Blair as prime minister.

The new NHS head will be paid £211,000 a year, the same as Nicholson, but has offered to take a 10% pay cut in the first year due to “NHS spending pressures”, NHS England said.

“The next five years are going to be extremely challenging for the NHS, but compassionate, high-quality care for all is as vital as ever,” Stevens said.

“It will be a privilege to lead NHS England – at a time when the stakes have never been higher – because I believe in the NHS, and because I believe that a broad new partnership of patients, carers, staff and the public can together chart a successful future for our health service.”

Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt said: “Simon has an extraordinary reputation in the UK and abroad as a reformer and an innovator, and we are lucky to have someone of his calibre doing such a vital role.

“He will make a key contribution to the two biggest challenges facing the NHS right now: how to raise standards of care and also be financially sustainable.”

Trade union Unison’s head of health Christina McAnea said she was “surprised” that no one within the NHS had been found to take the role.

McAnea told BBC Radio 4′s Today programme she is “somewhat concerned that this may send out a message … is this the Tory and Lib Dem Government hoping to import America-type values into the NHS, a sort of insurance-type system?”

“We sincerely hope it’s not.”

New NHS head hired from private sector