Allyson Pollock: Tackling risks and harms

Kenneth Clarke, who in 1990 drove through the great split in the NHS, introducing the internal market and purchaser providers; Alan Milburn of New Labour, who brought in the NHS 2000 plan, created foundation trusts, and pushed through PFI schemes and the independent sector treatment programme, as well as the corporate fragmentation and erosion of primary care; Andrew Lansley, who introduced the Health and Social Care Act that dismantles the NHS by removing the secretary of state's duty to provide universal healthcare throughout England and makes commercial contracting virtually compulsory; and Jeremy Hunt, who is presiding over the NHS's rapid break-up and privatisation and introducing corporate structures drawn from the US, while ignoring all evidence of harm and growing inequalities. For the worse: new public management techniques, performance reviews, commercial contracting in public services, and the constant quest for economic growth. To see the NHS Reinstatement Bill ( www.nhsbillnow.org ) back in parliament and enacted; to see the chief medical officers use the evidence and advise ministers to remove dangerous contact elements from collision school sports such as rugby; and to take forward international programmes of work on regulatory sciences, access to healthcare, and rational medicine use linked to rights to health.