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Editorial Tuesday 26 April 2016: The Waste Land - on the NHS and recent Conservative Health Secretaries

Publish Date/Time: 
04/26/2016 - 11:52

A significant theme is emerging with recent Conservative Secretaries Of State For Health, talking to the BBC about their job in April.

April 2011: Health Secretary Andrew Lansley "Maybe I spend too much of my time with the NHS and too little trying to sell the politics. I'm not in this for the politics; I'm in this for the NHS. I'm in politics to give the NHS what I think it's needed for a generation - an opportunity for those who are delivering the care for patients and the patients themselves really to feel empowered".

April 2016: Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt "This is likely to be my last big job in politics, and the one thing that would keep me awake is if I didn't do the right thing to make the NHS one of the safest, highest-quality health systems in the world".

Forget the weekend effect: this is the April BBC Effect.

As T S Eliot wrote, "April is the cruellest month ..."