Reid: I'll halve NHS quangos

John Reid will today respond to criticisms the health service is overburdened with bureaucrats by slashing the number of quangos in the National Health Service.

The Health Secretary will announce plans to halve the number of unofficial bodies in a move aimed at transferring £500 million to the frontline.

About 5,000 jobs could be cut in the overhaul which will see 21 of 42 NHS quangos abolished or merged. Although the services to be affected have yet to be named, health chiefs have warned that no organisation would be safe from the cull.

Mr Reid is expected to claim that the cash savings from cutting bureaucracy could employ 20,000 new nurses or build four new hospitals.

The cutbacks follow criticisms that the NHS has too many managers and administrators.

A recent report by Centre for Policy Studies claimed there were managers were being employed at a faster rate than nurse last year.

The 5,000 posts will be cut by natural wastage or redundancy by 2007-08. These job losses will come on top of a planned 1,400 slimming of staff at Department of Health headquarters

The quangos, which have responsibility for safeguarding patient interests, setting standards and regulating health services, have a combined staff of 22,000 people with budgets totalling £2.5 billion.