from the Guardian:
'Mackey [Streeting's choice to head the NHS], an accountant by background, is also weighing up whether to axe Julian Kelly, the deputy chief executive and chief financial officer. Kelly, who is widely respected, does what some see as “probably the toughest job in Whitehall” – trying to make the NHS’s near-£200bn annual budget meet its needs while reassuring ministers that it is spending it wisely. His future remains unclear.
A source familiar with Mackey’s thinking said: “It will be a pretty total clearout. And there’s an appetite in some quarters to move Julian Kelly on as part of that. But if you’re going to replace the guy who’s in effect the financial controller of a £200bn budget, you need to know what you are doing before you get rid of him.
“Jim will want his own person in that job, but at the same time it’s a risky time to get someone new in, given the NHS’s finances are in a poor state.”
Kelly is respected at the Treasury, where he used to be its director general of public spending and finance. However, he has risked irritating ministers by warning at recent NHS England board meetings that the £22bn extra Rachel Reeves has given the health service over the next two years will be swallowed up by pay rises and not be enough to pay for the radical transformation of how care is delivered, through “three big shifts” that Streeting and Keir Starmer have promised.'
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/mar/06/stephen-powis-step-down-nhs-england-medical-director
So it's shoot the messenger time.
