Sir David Behan is a British business person who served as chief executive of the Care Quality Commission from 2012 to July 2018. He was formerly the Department of Health's director general for social care, local government and care partnerships. He was the Director of Adult Social Services in the London Borough of Greenwich from 1996 to 2003. In 2004, he was appointed a CBE for services to social care. He was said by the Health Service Journal to be the seventh-most powerful person in the English NHS in December 2013, and in 2015 the fifth. In January 2014 he threw his weight behind a wide definition for the statutory duty of candour which was recommended by the Francis Report. The Government originally intended the duty to be limited to cases of “severe harm” – when a patient had been killed or left permanently disabled, as a wider reporting requirement could inundate organisations with unnecessary bureaucracy. The CQC estimates there are about 11,000 incidents of severe harm per year, and up to 100,000 incidents of serious harm, although there may be significant under reporting of both. The charity Action Against Medical Accidents has been campaigning for a wide definition and Behan made it clear that he was supporting them. Behan was knighted in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to health and care. In November 2018 Behan was appointed as a non-executive director for HC-One, the largest care home operator in Britain. In the same month it was announced that Behan would be the chair of Health Education England from 1 December 2018. In September 2019 Behan was appointed from Non-executive director for HC-One to Non-Executive Chairman. Sir David joined the HC-One board as a non-executive director in November 2018 and will assume his new role from October 31, following the retirement of Dr Chai Patel CBE from the position.
Views
Behan wants to see more investment in social care in England. He maintains 1.2 million older people who need help with basic care for washing, dressing, eating are not getting it. Behan stated, “What’s disappointing, I have to say, is we’ve not seen a similar investment in social care. The creation of the NHS by Attlee and Bevan in 1948 took remarkable political courage and I think there will need to be remarkable political courage to adult social care . What we now need is a long-term funding settlement for social care which sits alongside the long-term funding settlement for the NHS.” Behan also wants to see increased funding for mental health services. In November 2018, Behan said that he advocated the creation of a compulsory insurance scheme with payments taken out of salaries, and for equity to be taken out of pensioners' homes in order to pay for care. He considered that the UK government had not been brave enough to make the decision to reform the system in contrast to Germany and Japan which implemented reforms.
