The Ealing North MP James Murray has been appointed to take over as health secretary after the former incumbent resigned last week. Here's what social care leaders need to know so far.
The Ealing North MP James Murray has been appointed to take over as health secretary after the former incumbent resigned last week.
With a Labour leadership challenge expected in the coming months following the governing party’s poor performance in local council elections in May, it is unclear how long Mr Murray will be in post.
However, he takes the helm at a pivotal point as the long-anticipated Health Bill starts its passage through parliament. The legislation aims to establish a single patient record and change NHS system management structures to support other measures in the NHS 10 year plan. These include the establishment of so-called ‘neighbourhood’ health and care measures designed to focus local commissioning on prevention and wellbeing, particularly for those with specified long term complex conditions including dementia.
Here’s everything you need to know about the new health secretary
Who is James Murray?
A former management consultant and Labour councillor, Murray was elected as MP for Ealing North in 2019.
He was chief secretary to the treasury since last September, before being elevated to the health secretary role last week.
Before becoming an MP he was deputy mayor of London for housing and residential development, a post he took in 2016 after a decade working as a councillor, including six years as executive member for housing and development.
Does he have any knowledge or experience of social care?
Mr Murray pledged to ‘fight for the health and social care system that we need’ in his maiden speech in parliament after being elected in 2019.
He spoke of a personal connection to the work of the NHS after the care he received for a rare long-term neurological condition called myasthenia gravis left him ‘symptom-free’ since the early 2010s.
As an opposition MP in 2019, he pledged to fight to “win the battle for the NHS and the social care system that we need”, and served briefly on the Health Select Committee before being appointed to the whips' office after Keir Starmer became leader.
How has the care sector reacted to his appointment?
While the sector has not reacted specifically to Mr Murray’s appointment directly, there has been reaction to the health bill, unveiled earlier in the same week in the King’s Speech.
The National Care Forum’s chief executive, Vic Rayner OBE, complained of “slim pickings for adult social care” in the speech, adding that the timeframes set by the government for the Casey Commission report – expected next year - “have served to undermine the government’s commitment to any urgency attached to desperately needed reform and the development of a National Care Service”.
Mr Rayner welcomed proposals for the single patient record, intended to bring health and social care information together in one place, but stressed that social care must be recognised as central to the government’s wider vision for the future of health and care, and warned that the planned NHS reforms, combined with local government reorganisation, could create a difficult operating environment for care and support providers.
