Health and Social Care Secretary, Wes Streeting, has appointed Tom Kibasi to lead the Government’s NHS reform agenda.

Bringing 20 years of experience working in the health sector, Kibasi will provide expert advice to the Government on how to fix the ‘broken NHS’, including drafting the proposed 10-Year Health Plan.

He has accepted a direct ministerial appointment to the Department of Health and Social Care where he will support the department to turn the ideas for a better health service, coming from tens of thousands of patients and frontline staff, into successful delivery in the landmark decade-long reforms.

The plan will set out how the Government’s three big shifts are to be delivered: from hospital to community, from analogue to digital, and from sickness to prevention.

Kibasi is currently joint chairman of three mental health and community NHS trusts, leading the charge to improve quality of care and to help keep patients well in the community, having joined the board of Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust in 2016. This includes ensuring that trusts share best practice through a new Board-in-Common and a common framework for quality of care, access to services, finance and productivity.

This expertise will help the Government deliver the shift in healthcare from hospital to the community.

Kibasi also led the drafting and directed the analysis for Lord Ara Darzi’s independent investigation into the state of the NHS, which reported in September 2024.

The investigation found that the service is in a ‘critical condition’ amid surging waiting lists and a deterioration in the nation’s underlying health.

Early in his career, Kibasi also worked at the Department of Health as a senior policy sdvisor to Lord Darzi for his landmark 2008 review of the NHS, High Quality Care for All.

Kibasi said: “The independent investigation was a devastating diagnosis of the problems that patients, the public, and hard-working NHS staff experience every day.

“Since then, there has been a remarkable process of public, staff, and expert engagement on the 10-Year Health Plan.

“There is now huge energy and expectation about the vision that it will set for both the service and for the health of the nation.”