Exclusive: NHSE director resigns, claiming politicians wanted ‘change at the top’

But support from @Rethink_ "“We are saddened by Claire’s departure as National Director for Mental Health at NHS England. She is a towering figure in the mental health field and a driving force behind the positive change we have seen in the system over the last decade."

Brutal response from @DHSCgovuk "“There hasn’t been as much progress on mental health outcomes for patients in the past year as we’d have liked, despite a big funding increase. We are determined to change that. We thank Claire for her service and wish her well.”

BREAKING: Another resignation! This time the NHS's national mental health director who has left "with immediate effect" claiming politcians wanted her out because she resisted their plans to cut funding

Good to hear Mackey honk the "we need to get back on the bike" klaxon during his PAC session. A trademark Mackeyism

Department of Health senior official Matthew Styles reveals the department’s capital delivery oversight group is “affectionately known as C-DOG”

Department of Health perm sec Sam Jones says there is "no change" in ministers' expectation to hit NHS's 18-week target at 92 per cent by 2029 but caveats statement "at the moment", in light of potential further strikes

Since the announcement that NHS England will be abolished the waiting list has gone from 7.419 million to 7.403 million....

Mark Cubbon reveals (yet another) new outpatients plan will be rolled out “from next year”...

NHSE CEO Jim Mackey makes v interesting (& correct) concession that NHSE’s plan to reform outpatients “was probably under-resourced”. 80% of elective patients end journey in outpatient or diagnostic setting, so this is main part of recovering waiting list.

NHS leaders admit much more progress needed on diagnostic waiting times. NHSE elective chief Mark Cubbon admits the “growth in diagnostic demand was far in excess of the modelling done” which underpinned plan to hit national 6-week diagnostic target by March.

NHS England CEO Mackey: The 50% cut to ICB budgets "should be" delivered without any direct impact to frontline NHS services

Mackey: “Hopefully we’re getting closer to resolving redundancy issue” – as we reported earlier this week, Mackey told health committee he never promised central funding for integrated care boards to fund redundancies £ https://t.co/Slerr6h4jK

It's a busy morning for NHS elective news: next up after latest data, @NHSEngland CEO Sir Jim Mackey & other NHS leaders are being grilled by the @CommonsPAC about how NHS is doing on reducing waiting times for non-urgent (elective) care. Watch here:

@NHSEngland This followed summer in which NHS leaders said they "bucked seasonal trends" to bring list down, although as we revealed last month, a lot of reduction was due to validation & other unreported removals from list, rather than NHS seeing more patients £

@NHSEngland's main target is to increase performance against 18-week target to 65%. Progress stalled between June & July, with % nudging down from 61.5% to 61.3%.

BREAKING: NHS waiting list rises for 2nd month in a row from 7.37 million to 7.40m cases in July, latest data shows. Small drop in cases waiting over 1 year, but still over target (192k) - this is 2.6% of list, but target is to get to 1% of list by March

Exclusive: 43 ‘neighbourhood’ pioneers revealed https://t.co/xsfMZYv93d

Setting long minimum wait times for common procedures is clearly wrong. But it's also a symptom of an NHS under massive pressure and perhaps a tariff system providing the wrong incentives. Good spot from @Jamesillman https://t.co/NeFmic2Dhr

Today: NHS England’s elective chief has admitted the service is not on course to hit the main 2025-26 elective care targets and has “more to do” to bring performance “back in line” by @mattcmathers £ https://t.co/GtAS98Ufmv