Political turmoil, NHS privatisation, and the revolving door...

When the Conservatives finally lost power in 2024, people breathed a collective sigh of relief. It wasn’t just their policies that left a mark on the population; the wide-reaching impact on public services from their “austerity cuts”, their poor leadership during the pandemic, Brexit. It was the way the party was conducting itself.

By the end of their tenure, it felt like scandal was heaped upon scandal. Ministers were resigning right, left and centre. Important jobs were being passed between MPs so quickly that it felt like they were on a ministerial merry-go-round, and it was hard to keep track.

The NHS was in a terrible state following the pandemic; rising waiting lists compounded by millions of people struggling to access healthcare through their GP. The problems didn’t come out of nowhere, they gradually stacked up. Many frontline staff tried to speak up for patients and advise politicians what needed to be done, and yet it felt like these efforts fell on deaf ears. The Tories were simply too consumed with their own mess to sort things out for the country.

I was working as a campaigner at the time of all this chaos, and was trying to advocate for NHS patients and staff by attempting to establish what their game plan was to address the demise of healthcare services. To be honest, often it was difficult to work out what their plan was, or whether there was an overarching plan at all. In total, the Conservatives cycled through 8 Health Secretaries during their 14 years in Downing Street.

By the time we got to 2024 the Tories’ political project was in absolute chaos, and most people felt that if they could just be ousted from Number 10, a proper plan for the country could be executed by whoever came next. I look back on those feelings now with a combination of nostalgia and regret. Nostalgia, because it was nice back then to still have the hope that something better was coming along. Nostalgia, even, for the abuse I received online when I dared to critique Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting’s plans.

I was watching Labour closely, and I was concerned that they’d advance NHS privatisation when they came to power. When I spoke up about it, I was relentlessly trolled online. But at least the people trolling me were trolling out of misplaced hope. At least they were trolling me because they could imagine a better future. If there’s ever a time to forgive online trolling, this is surely it.

Of course, we now know that my fears were justified. Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting have indeed advanced NHS privatisation, and now two years on, we face new concerns about what this Labour government is doing to the NHS. Concerns about NHS data safety. Concerns about Palantir. Concerns about the use of AI within our healthcare system. Concerns, even, that if Labour’s political project fails as the Tories did, that they could be replaced by Reform, and we could lose the NHS as we know it altogether.

Through all of this - the big words, manifestos, speeches and fanfare of the past two years, the media focus has mostly been on the politicians themselves. There’s been enormous attention on small cabinet reshuffles, on parliamentary expenses, and, most recently, on the resignation of Wes Streeting, this Labour government’s first Health Secretary. He didn’t even last two years.

There’s an obvious reason for this focus on politics; it’s easy journalism - cliquey journalism by those within the “Westminster bubble” who exist in cosy circles of other journalists and pundits and politicians, and who write articles for clicks.

They’re happy to write about political scandals because the scandals and rumours drive clicks, and all of these clicks drive advertising money for newspapers, money that keeps them in their jobs. But meanwhile, the public loses out. They’re not given decent, in-depth reporting about a whole heap of things that matter. And the country’s now in a spiral; a terrifying spiral which could see our politics lurch to the far right at the next General Election.

So I’d like to talk about something a bit different today - something which frankly should be on the front page of every newspaper in the country. About a political system which in my opinion is decidedly dodgy, a department which you probably don’t think about much, and a very important official who you might never have heard of.

Because there’s a person called Samantha Jones who epitomises the culture of leadership and influence that permeates the corridors of power, but rarely makes it into the papers. She was initially recruited by Boris Johnson, has had an absolutely meteoric career rise over the past 5 years, and has extremely strong links to private healthcare…

Samantha Jones first came onto my radar back in April 2021, when she left her role as Chief Executive of Operose (the UK arm of the massive US private healthcare company Centene), to become “Boris Johnson’s top health advisor”. This would have raised alarm bells at any time, but it felt particularly concerning because Operose had just taken over a number of NHS GP surgeries. Many patients were up in arms; they hadn’t been informed or asked about this change, and were understandably concerned about what it would mean for their care.

Less than a year later, Jones was promoted to a very senior position, becoming Number 10 Downing Street’s interim Permanent Secretary, as well its first ever Chief Operating Officer. This happened during the fallout from “partygate”, as Boris Johnson tried to establish calm amid the chaos while many were calling for his resignation.

Here’s a quote from a Guardian piece at the time about Samantha Jones’ swift ascension:

Many of us wondered at the time why Jones had been picked for these roles, or what it would mean next. This is clearly a person of significant managerial talent who had moved up through the ranks of NHS and corporate governance, but there remained concern about her background, and the potential conflict of previous work with the private healthcare sector.

But even when she moved roles yet again, becoming a non-executive director at the Department of Health and Social Care in 2023 (and becoming the lead non-executive director for a period), I doubted that her meteoric rise through the ranks would continue once the Tories lost power.

Despite my concerns about Starmer’s plans for the NHS, I didn’t think he’d willingly and openly surround himself with people who had strong historical links to the private healthcare sector, let alone Boris Johnson. I thought it would be too politically sensitive for him to do this.

I was wrong. In April 2025, long after Boris Johnson got the boot, and almost a year into Starmer’s leadership, it was announced that Samantha Jones would become the next Permanent Secretary at the Department of Health and Social Care (the post she currently holds). This is a very important position indeed. The government’s own website features a list of bullet points about her role, and here’s one of them:

“advising ministers on strategy and objectives for the health and social care system”

But even so, I wouldn’t be surprised if you were reading this thinking “So what? She left the private healthcare sector. Why should we be concerned?”. After all, many of us feel that government departments should employ more people who have done ordinary frontline jobs serving the public; and Samantha Jones started her career as an NHS nurse.

But I think we should be deeply concerned, for two big reasons…

Firstly, because an article was recently published in the FT with this heading and subtitle:

And an article from The Morning Star commenting on the FT’s work said this:

And so Samantha Jones’ move from the private healthcare sector wasn’t as clean-cut as we might like it to be; in fact the reporting illustrates that at some point over the past few years, she has had links with a number of companies operating in or on behalf of private healthcare.

It’s important to note that the Department of Health and Social Care have been clear that they feel Jones has managed this situation appropriately, and had resigned from the positions she held with private companies before becoming the department’s Permanent Secretary. It’s also important to remember that Jones, and the countless people like her in positions of power and influence, are not breaking any rules, and do what they do because they can.

Regardless, I imagine I’m not the only person who feels uneasy about the situation. Call me naive, but I would like the Department of Health to be run by people who don’t have any link whatsoever with the private healthcare sector, and whose personal interests lie entirely in the maintenance of a free, not for profit healthcare system for all.

The proximity of Samantha Jones to these companies makes me feel uneasy, regardless of when appointments were made and broken. But focusing on Jones, or any other individual, doesn’t really get to the heart of this issue. In the eyes of the law, Samantha Jones has done nothing wrong - she is someone acting how she wants because there is nothing to stop her. Instead, the deep discomfort I have is for the way our political system works.

Why are officials allowed to bounce between lucrative consultancy gigs in the private sector and jobs within some of our country’s most important public institutions? Why are our media outlets so terrible at telling us what’s going on? What does this really mean for the future of our public services? And, crucially, why does this matter now?

Well, it matters because we have a summer of absolute political turmoil ahead. Starmer’s days as Prime Minister look numbered, and others are champing at the bit to oust him and take on the top job. And while the media focuses on this - churning out clickbait about the smallest developments, the most trivial of political stories, I fear that the real work is going on behind the scenes.

Work by people who are more competent and more impressive than most of our politicians. People who are quietly writing, approving, and pushing through policies which threaten the public ownership and running of the NHS.

I’ve been studying this situation for a very long time, and I worked as a doctor for ten years before that, and have come to the conclusion that privatisation sits at the heart of the NHS’s demise. The NHS isn’t being privatised simply because of the mastery of politicians who wish to see it collapse.

It’s being privatised because successive governments have sat far too closely to corporations, with private healthcare companies invited by officials into rooms where important decisions which are made; decisions which impact the public. As a result, the revolving door between the private healthcare sector and public office has been allowed to spin, unabated.

It’s not enough, then, to focus what our politicians are up to. We need to ask questions about what our officials are getting up to as well. And this is absolutely critical, because the public deserves to know what’s going on.

I’ll do my best not to get sucked into Number 10’s political drama this summer, and tell you about other important, interesting things instead. Because frankly, you need to hear about what’s going on. Millions of people are being profoundly failed by the state of the NHS, and patients and staff deserve so much better than this.