Doctor Hunt

‘I would like to be the person who safeguards Andrew Lansley’s legacy,’ says Jeremy Hunt, the Health Secretary, as he sits in his new office. Hunt is touchingly eager to praise his predecessor. He predicts that Lansley ‘will be seen as the architect of the modern NHS’ and stresses that he is in regular touch ‘to make sure that I learn as much as I can from him, because I don’t think there is anyone who knows more about the NHS than Andrew’.

But if Lansley was such a paragon, why was he moved? Hunt replies defensively: ‘You’d have to ask David Cameron about that.’ A few moments later, he is more forthcoming: ‘What has happened, because the reforms were so far reaching, we have had a big debate about structures and I think we need to move on from there and talk about why those structures are going to make a difference to patients.’