Sunak’s shakeup: new health secretary announced

Former health secretary Steve Barclay has been demoted to the role of environment secretary, putting Victoria Atkins in his place.

This morning Prime Minister Rishi Sunak sacked his former housing secretary Suella Braverman after she wrote a newspaper article criticising the Metropolitan Police’s handling of a controversial pro-Palestinian march for Armistice Day.

Following this decision, Mr Sunak has been reshuffling his cabinet members, which, has seen former health and social care secretary Steve Barclay move to become the new environment secretary, after Therese Coffey resigned at lunchtime.

As a result, Victoria Atkins has been promoted from her role as treasury minister to fill Mr Barclay’s old post.

Since the announcement this afternoon social care and health experts have been sharing their views that now is arguably the worst time to fill this position – pressures from the cost-of-living and the covid-19 pandemic are still pilling onto NHS and social care staff.

Steve Sawyer, managing director at Access Health, Support and Care said: ‘It’s important that the new secretary of state for health and social care continues the important work of Steve Barclay and his team in using technology to bring real benefits to patients and NHS staff. The use of virtual wards, for example, to allow people to recover in their own homes, has given patients choice while increasing capacity in hospitals.

‘But improvements in the NHS will only work is they also bring social care along on the journey and that means delivering truly integrated care.’

‘Representatives from social care on Integrated Care Boards would help that happen,’ Steve said. ‘From preventative care to delayed discharge from hospitals and dealing with delayed ambulance handovers outside A&E; uniting health and social care and allowing technology to deliver truly joined up care will deliver the biggest benefits.’

Image: Aleks Marinkovic