Health and care sector latest developments

Mental health performance target needed to address “appalling treatment gap”

The NHS Alliance is urging the government to introduce a new NHS mental health performance target for children and young people (CYP) to help address an “appalling treatment gap” for people with mental ill health who can’t access care. 

The call comes as official data suggests that despite significant progress in many trusts there are still more than 90,000 people up to the age of 18 with mental ill health waiting more than two years following a referral for their first meaningful contact with NHS specialist community mental health services in England. Between December 2025 and February 2026, around 70 per cent of CYP with a mental health need, had to wait over four weeks.

The director of The NHS Alliance’s Mental Health Network, Rebecca Gray, said: "We want the same accountability, and visibility, for waiting times as the hospital sector.”

The story was covered in the i paper and the full comment can be seen here: Mental health performance target needed to address "appalling treatment gap"

Smoking ban for people born after 2008 in the UK agreed

Children aged 17 or younger will face a lifelong ban on buying cigarettes, as the tobacco and vapes bill clears parliament.

Both the Commons and Lords have settled on a final draft of the ‘landmark’ legislation, that aims to stop anyone born after 1 January 2009 from taking up smoking by making it illegal for shops to sell them tobacco, to create a smoke-free generation.

When it gets royal assent, ministers will also have new powers to regulate tobacco, vaping and nicotine products, including their flavours and packaging.

It is part of a series of measures aimed at tackling the health effects of smoking, one of the UK's leading causes of preventable death, disability and ill health.

NHS England reveals NHS App self-test specialties

NHS England plans to centralise at-home diagnostics for seven specialties through the NHS App, commercial documents reveal.

The Health Service Journal has reported that market engagement documents released last week said NHS England wants to replace the fragmented and inconsistent infrastructure with ‘a single, trusted national home-testing capability’.

The new service plans to fill ‘a recognised gap’ in home-testing infrastructure, of ‘fragmented commissioning arrangements, inconsistent user journeys, and lack of interoperability between local providers and national digital platforms’.

New anti-racist healthcare textbook released 

The first medical textbook dedicated to tackling racism in medicine and delivering anti-racist healthcare in the UK was launched in parliament with MPs, professors, clinicians, students and patient advocates.

The project is co-led by Dr Zeshan Qureshi, an NHS doctor and philosopher, who is currently conducting a PhD at the University of Cambridge on how race and ethnicity are vital to understanding and improving healthcare outcomes in the UK.

Despite the NHS being founded on universal access, Qureshi argues that equal access to healthcare remains ‘an ideal rather than a reality’, with ethnic health inequalities persisting and even worsening since Sir Michael Marmot’s landmark 2010 review on health inequality in the UK.

Black staff ‘hit harder by management cuts’

Managers from diverse ethnic backgrounds say they are “losing roles at a higher rate” than others during a wave of NHS management restructures.

According to the Health Service Journal, a letter from the managers in Partnership trade union’s Black Members Network claims senior leadership has become “progressively less diverse with each restructure” and accused national bosses of “failing to lead by example”.

MiP, which is a branch of Unison representing NHS managers, said members were reporting concerns across the current restructures in NHS England, integrated care boards (ICBs) and provider trusts.

NHS England and ICBs are going through major restructure and redundancy programmes, with targets to take out around half of staff costs. Some provider trusts are also making big cuts, particularly to corporate staff, to hit financial targets.

CQC seeks chief executive with ‘clear political licence’

The Care Quality Commission’s next chief executive will need to operate with ‘clear political licence’ and be a ‘visible national leader’, according to the troubled regulator’s job description for the role.

Following months of delays, the organisation has finally started recruiting for its next chief executive – who will become its fourth since 2018 – following Sir Julian Hartley’s resignation in last October.

Offering a £220,000 salary, which is less than the £290,000 Sir Julian was earning, the job advert makes clear the next chief executive will need to be a ‘visible national leader, able to engage credibly with ministers, parliament, providers, partners and the public’.

If kept at the advertised level, the salary will also be lower than that earned by chief inspector of hospitals Toli Onon at £230,000.

NHS England whistleblowing takeover ‘will have chilling effect’

NHS England’s plan to take over a key whistleblowing initiative will have a “chilling effect” on staff wishing to speak up, experts have warned.

NHS England and individual trusts will take on the oversight of Freedom to Speak Up arrangements from the summer, following Penny Dash’s recommendation last year to disband the National Guardian’s Office as part of her government-commissioned patient safety review.

New guidance says that, from July, NHS England will support existing guardian networks and individual guardians. This includes NHS England staff designated as ‘experts’ providing confidential one-to-one support.

The guidance says there will be ‘arrangements in place to ensure this support is suitably separate from NHS England’s prescribed body function’.