The brutalist concrete planes and angles of London’s Southbank Centre seem to glint in the early spring sunshine as I make my way towards the National Theatre to meet the recently departed head of another beloved British institution.
Although the business of my lunch guest, Amanda Pritchard, is care rather than culture, her career has recently had its own quotient of drama. In late February, the 48-year-old unexpectedly announced her resignation after three and a half years as the head of NHS England, the body that runs the country’s free-to-use healthcare system, consistently rated as the feature of national life that makes people proudest to be British. The following month, Prime Minister Keir Starmer scrapped the body entirely, bringing the NHS back under direct government control after 13 years of operational independence.
Pritchard’s tenure — which began in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic — has been as torrid as its conclusion. Although long waits for NHS treatment are now steadily falling, patients are still waiting for around 7.4mn “non-urgent” procedures, after Covid exposed the service’s long-standing fragilities. Following the election of a Labour government last year, health and social care secretary Wes Streeting bluntly declared the NHS “broken” and its leaders are keenly awaiting their own prescription in the shape of a 10-year plan expected in June.