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A senior NHS manager with experience in the private health sector has been appointed as the next permanent secretary of the Ministry of Health as civil servants prepare for widespread churn at the top of Whitehall.
Samantha Jones, a non-executive director of the Ministry of Health, will be announced as the highest Mandarin later this month, people familiar with the matter told the Financial Times.
She is the first of the highest-level new appointments for civil servants this year and is expected to be the most important appointment, given the scale of the reform, the Ministry of Health and Social Care will accept after the abolition of NHS England. Sir Keir Starmer announced last month that the agency, which employs 15,000 employees, is under direct control of the health department.
Jones will replace White Hall’s longest-serving permanent secretary, Sir Chris Formald, who has been promoted to cabinet secretary.
The civil servants are also recruiting the Ministry of Justice’s new permanent secretary after his former current Antonia Romeo paid a salary of £200,000 after he transferred it to the Ministry of Home Affairs last month.
The same position is also promoted in the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Technology.
British overseas intelligence agency MI6 is seeking a new chief, a position with permanent secretary as its outgoing chief, Sir Richard Moore is preparing to resign this summer.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Finance is hiring a second permanent secretary to replace Cat Little, who was promoted to Permanent Secretary in the Cabinet Office last spring. The Treasury position will be located on London or the Darlington campus in the ministry.
Alex Thomas, director of the program at the government think tank institute, said Whitehall’s highest-level resignation will have a strong relationship with Starmer providing the government with plans.
Thomas noted that after the election, limited permanent secretary was “disorganized” very common because the staff of the job decided to move on.
“But it will be a major change,” he said. “The appointment will set the tone for civil servants led by Chris Wormald, which is crucial to how the department can turn government policies into action.”
Jones started his career as a nurse before becoming an NHS manager, was the CEO of two health care trusts and oversees a national nursing reform program.
She became an expert advisor to the NHS transformation and social care while serving as prime minister, and served as interim permanent secretary and chief operating officer of Downing Street during her tenure.
Prior to entering the government, she served as CEO of Operasose Health in the private sector, which operates GP services on behalf of the NHS.
This aspect of her background may prove controversial between some health unions and the left of the workforce, in which case concerns the government’s willingness to increase the role of the private sector in providing health care.
Rupert McNeil is the former Whitehall chief people working with Jones. “I don’t think anyone else combines her intelligence and mastery with the depth and breadth of her incredibly complex healthcare system,” he said.
The government declined to comment on the permanent secretary of the next health department before announcing its appointment.
But it said about the mobility of the permanent secretary in Whitehall: “These are key leadership roles that will oversee the work of their departments on the change program and support civil servants in delivering workers’ priorities.”
