(MENAFN- Gulf Times) Theresa May has kept Jeremy Hunt as her health secretary with new responsibility for social care, signalling that the prime minister wants to make another attempt to reform the troubled system.
Hunt was rumoured to be moving to a new role as May's deputy but will stay in his job to address the worsening winter crisis in the NHS and take more control over social care.
The deputy job has now been given to David Lidington, who moves from the role of justice secretary and will take over as minister for the Cabinet Office, chairing the big Cabinet committees and standing in for May at prime minister's questions.
Hunt's new remit is a sign that May wants to return to the difficult issue of social care, after abandoning a deeply unpopular election policy to make people pay for elderly care out of the value of their property. Labour branded the policy a 'dementia tax and it was swiftly dropped after the election.
Two other Cabinet ministers who were said to be facing the chop Sajid Javid and Greg Clark have also kept their jobs in the reshuffle.
Javid's role has been changed from communities and local government to housing, communities and local government, part of May's attempts to focus more attention on housing issues. Clark's job is staying the same as secretary of state for business, energy and industrial policy.
Earlier, the shake-up got off to a chaotic start after an official Tory Twitter account announced that Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, was the new party chair, even though it was in fact Brandon Lewis who was given the role.
No 10 also announced that Amber Rudd would remain as home secretary, Philip Hammond as chancellor and David Davis as Brexit secretary. Boris Johnson was also confirmed in his job as foreign secretary, shortly after he was seen going into Downing Street.
A No 10 announcement said Lidington, who was also formerly leader of the Commons and is a generally popular figure among Tory MPs, had been made minister for the Cabinet Office and chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. There was no news about who would replace him as justice secretary, a job he had only held for seven months.
While Downing Street confirmed that his new role remained a Cabinet post, Lidington has not been made first secretary of state, the courtesy title that gave Green the job of May's de facto deputy.
Green was sacked in December after an investigation found he had lied about the discovery of pornography on his office computer during a police raid in 2008. However, No 10 said Lidington would chair all the influential Cabinet Office committees formerly chaired by Green, meaning he has in effect the same job, but without the first secretary of state title.
Following the first confirmed move of the day James Brokenshire resigned as Northern Ireland secretary for health reasons several reports said Grayling was being moved from being transport secretary to party chair.
This appeared confirmed after the official Conservative Twitter account sent a photo of Grayling with the message: 'Congratulations to Chris Grayling following his appointment as Conservative party chairman.
However, this message was very quickly deleted, as reports began circulating that Lewis might get the post instead.
About an hour later came the announcement from Downing Street that Lewis was leaving the Home Office to become minister without portfolio and chair of the party.
It had been confirmed earlier that the incumbent party chairman, Sir Patrick McLoughlin, had stood down. He had been under pressure since the disastrous election campaign and an incident when a prankster got into the party conference to hand May a fake P45 during her main speech.
Earlier, it was announced that Brokenshire would leave. The long-time ally of May has been unable to revive the suspended Northern Ireland assembly following a political collapse after a scandal over a botched green heating subsidy scheme.
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