NHS managers are 'overpaid and underemployed' says Vanessa Feltz

Some things in life are a given. We’ve heard them so often we don’t question them. They belong in the category described by the dodgy character Goldberg in Harold Pinter’s play The Birthday Party: “True? Of course it’s true. It’s more than true. It’s a fact.” Here is one such “fact” – the NHS management tier is top-heavy. Overpaid and underemployed, NHS managers need culling. Those purportedly “in the know” dismiss NHS management as “too many chiefs and not enough Indians”.

We think of fat-cats idling in ivory towers, while queues of ambulances wait in hospital forecourts unable to disgorge patients because there are no free beds to put them in. Our blood boils. We want these managers gone, because whatever it is that they’re “pretending” to do is a flagrant waste of our money.

That is why health secretary Victoria Atkins can state with vigour that the Tories, should they be returned to government, have a strong strategy for increasing access to GP appointments. They know that we’re frightened and frustrated by the obstacle course of securing a slot to see a GP face to face.

Note: I don’t say “our” GP because the chances of seeing the same doctor twice are vanishingly small. Atkins pledges to give £1billion to building 100 new GP hubs which she promises will increase our chances of an appointment by “tens of thousands”. How will this ambitious building project be funded? You’ve guessed it – by slashing the NHS management layer, telling all those lavishly remunerated idlers to get on their bikes.

So far, so excellent.

Except that if you do actually ask doctors, nurses, surgeons, physicians and receptionists, as I did on my LBC radio show, the response is unexpected. NHS managers, I was told repeatedly, do an essential job.

Dame Clare Gerada, still a practising GP putting in 12-hour days, explains that management heightens efficiency, and helps workflows and organising the purchase of essential equipment while apportioning enormous budgets, thus ensuring everything is smooth running which allows doctors and nurses to prioritise patients.

A veteran GP receptionist confirmed to me that managers perform valuable functions without which the NHS would crumble. Nurses and midwives also rang to explain the purpose and contribution of management. Not a single caller repeated the time-honoured trope about lazy useless management draining the NHS dry.

What’s more, not one health professional thought the Tory plan – to throw a billion pounds in the ring and fire management – would work.

Why not? It’s simple. There aren’t enough trained GPs in the UK to plug the appointment gaps.

That’s the actual problem.