‘Don’t be fooled, Matt Hancock will be no better for the NHS than Jeremy Hunt was’

​Jeremy Hunt became a lightning rod for the medical profession’s dissatisfaction and the wider public’s disgruntlement with an NHS pushed to breaking point. He has departed following the announcement of a £20bn NHS birthday funding package and will hope that this enhances his legacy as the longest serving health secretary.

Labour shadow health secretary Jonathan Ashworth took a different view tweeting that Hunt’s toxic legacy includes £9bn of NHS privatisation, 4 million on waiting lists, 100,000 staff vacancies and A&E in a “humanitarian crisis”.

As I wrote last week, the funding package comes with strings attached to a US-style model of accountable/integrated healthcare, with the danger of carving up health and social care multibillion pound 10- to 15-year contracts for private healthcare and insurance companies.

Hunt promoted patient safety as his obsession. And yet since 2010, there have been 120,000 excess deaths in health and social care linked to austerity. In 2015 alone, there were 30,000 excess deaths with the likely main cause being health and social care system failures linked to cuts. Cuts and privatisation are not exactly a recipe for patient safety.

It is likely that Hunt will be remembered for precipitating the junior doctors’ strikes over the imposition of a new contract. Undoubtedly some will have celebrated the departure of Hunt. Don’t be fooled, Hunt was merely a figurehead…