Past experience shows that the notion of 'centralising' gets the average Tory politician slavering like Pavlov's dog, so this must be a seriously sexy idea for the government to get excited about.
However, history shows that like all major seriously unwieldy operations, the NHS is riddled with factions who all have their won individual uniquely operated fifedoms, with uniquely operated systems to run them.
The problem with 'centralising' is that it assumes that all these myriad labarynthine systems are compatable and can be streamlined into one huge faultless operating system that will provide everything to everyone.
That of course is a facile nonsense.
None of the NHS's systems are remotely compatible with each other, and attempts to make they talk to each other, much les combine, sends them into the microchip eqivalent of a nervous collapse where they fall over and cease to work at all for long periods.
If Mr Hancock seriously thinks this will work, he needs to chat to any of the poor bods who have to provide tech support to the NHS.
Any of them will do, they will all tell him that the notion is dooed to failure.
The person who will not say that, is the person bidding for the contract to oversee all this 'coming together' - he will say it's a snip, a doddle, and his company can do it for a mere (insert your own multi-million pound fee here) and it will be done in six months.
If I can see that, why can't the government?
I have friends in high-ranking jobs and other friends who provide tech support and they will laugh at this notion - so why doesn't Mr Hancock chat with them?
Because he has a vested interest in seeing himself as 'the man who sorted the NHS' and that sounds far more attractive than the reality -
Not in this lifetime chum!!
Oh well ...