Publish date: 14 March 2025
Dear Colleagues,
Many of you will have heard the announcement about the abolition of NHS England as the Government seeks to streamline the health service and reduce costs to make sure more money is focused on patient care.
Sir Jim Mackey, the incoming NHS England Chief Executive, announced that Integrated Care Boards (ICBs) will cut their running costs by 50 per cent by the start of December 2025, as part of a wider ‘financial reset’ package. These are unprecedented changes that will fundamentally reshape how the NHS operates regionally and locally.
We received the news at the same time the Government made the announcement to the national media and have since learned that NHS trusts will be required to cut ’corporate services’ budgets back to pre-pandemic levels and asked to explore delivering support services more cost effectively.
Yesterday we were asked to attend a Chair and Chief Executive Officers’ meeting where we heard the announcement directly from NHS England leaders. As many of you will be aware, our financial planning programme has been underway since autumn 2024 and over the next week we will spend time to further understand the details of the announcements on our trust plans and engage with all staff on the implications and our next steps.
We know this news will cause anxiety and uncertainty for many colleagues and we will organise further updates and briefing sessions as soon as we receive official detail from the Department of Health and Social Care.
Please look after yourselves and each other and remember our wellbeing services are available if you need support.
The strength of our organisation has always been our people - your dedication, compassion and resilience - and together we will navigate through this challenging period too.
