BMJ  2007;335:18-19 (7 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.39261.449097.AD (published 28 June 2007)

Feature

What's next for the NHS?

Nick Timmins, public policy editor

Financial Times, London

Nick.Timmins@FT.com

As Gordon Brown takes over from Tony Blair as prime minister, Nick Timmins speculates on what he might have in store for the NHS

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

Day to day most doctors, nurses, managers, and other NHS staff carry on with what they do best: treating patients and trying to make sure the service works. But among policy makers, politicians, NHS trade associations, trade unions, and those with financial and managerial responsibility for the service, the focus right now is elsewhere, and on only one question. What will Gordon Brown's arrival as prime minister mean for the NHS?

The short answer is that no one knows. Perhaps, at this point, not even Gordon Brown himself. Despite the fact that the NHS now consumes almost a fifth of all public spending, the service is not something to which he has devoted a lot of time over his decade as chancellor.

To be sure, he has been deeply involved in the really big issue: how much money the NHS should receive. It might have been Tony Blair who announced . . . [Full text of this article]


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