Stevens defended by MPs over health crisis

Amid tension concerns between the NHS and government, NHS chief executive Simon Stevens has been defended by MPs for sounding the alarm over health funding.

Due to appear before the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee, Stevens is set to face questions over whether the NHS is funded sufficiently following several warnings of a winter crisis and preventable danger to patient safety.

A report in The Times suggested that key members of the Prime Minister Theresa May’s team accused Simon Stevens of being ‘insufficiently enthusiastic and responsive’, leaving staff irritated by Stevens’ ‘political’ interventions.

However, many politicians have urged the government to face up to of its responsibilities rather than pass the blame. Tim Farron, the Liberal Democrat leader, said that ‘despite its scandalous lack of funding’ Stevns has ‘heroically kept the NHS afloat’, before saying that, in order to ‘distract attention’, the government has ‘blamed the expert’.

Hospital doctors and health experts, including the Royal College of Physicians, have repeatedly warned May that the NHS will fail this Winter as hospitals are ‘paralysed by spiralling demand’. Experts also stated that patient care will continue to suffer as a result unless the government provides emergency funding.