Seeing red

doi:10.1136/bmj.39204.639711.94

BMJ 2007;334:976-977 (12 May), doi:10.1136/bmj.39204.639711.94

Feature

Interview

Seeing red

David Brindle, public services editor

Guardian, London

david.brindle@guardian.co.uk

Julian Tudor Hart coined the term inverse care law, which saysthose who most need health care are the least likely to getit. Now aged 80, he tells David Brindle why he's angry at Blair'sNHS, former BMJ editor Richard Smith, and research ethicists

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

Meeting Julian Tudor Hart is good for the soul. Whatever youmake of his unswerving socialist line on health care in general,and the NHS in particular, his capacity at 80 to be just asangry as he surely was at 18 does much to bolster your faithin humanity.

During the course of a couple of hours' conversation at hishome on the Gower peninsula in south Wales, enjoying spectacularviews over Oxwich Bay, the former general practitioner and researchpioneer professes himself angry or, more usually, very angryon several fronts: Tony Blair—of course; Richard Smith,former editor of the BMJ and now chief executive of United HealthEurope—to be expected; but research ethicists? More ofthis to follow.

More, too, of Tudor Hart's irrepressible optimism. Althoughthe medical profession, in common with other health workers,may in his view have failed miserably to challenge effectivelythe slide . . . [Full text of this article]

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