Thousands of NHS patients are set to benefit as the country’s best-run hospitals and community health trusts are set to be handed more independence – freeing local leaders from central bureaucracy so they can deliver faster, better, and more personalised care.

Health and Social Care Secretary Wes Streeting today announced a major shift in how the NHS is run, ending decades of top-down control and giving the highest performing organisations new “advanced foundation trust” status.

The new designation will reward the very best leaders in the NHS with even greater freedom to make decisions locally – from how services are organised to how money is spent – so that care can be designed around what works best for local people, not dictated from Whitehall.

If trusts have been careful with taxpay

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