Government turns to discredited Labour health secretary Patricia Hewitt to make NHS more efficient

Disgraced former Labour health secretary Patricia Hewitt has been drafted in to advise the Government on making the NHS more efficient.

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said the New Labour-era minister will help him and Health Secretary Steve Barclay on operating new ‘integrated care boards’, which replaced clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) earlier this year.

Miss Hewitt, who held four frontbench roles under Tony Blair, faced scandals before and during her time in government.

She was suspended from the Labour Party in 2010 over political lobbying irregularities, and was forced to apologise over her links to a paedophile lobbying group in the 1970s.

Last night one senior Tory said: ‘Why on earth are we appointing a discredited Labour politician to lead a review of the NHS?

‘We never, ever learn – we are constantly appointing opponents to do reviews which are then used to attack us.’

 Patricia Hewitt (left in 1981, right in 2006) was suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party in 2010 over allegations that she tried to sway policy decisions by lobbying the Government for private firms

Chancellor Jeremy Hunt said the New Labour-era minister will help him and Health Secretary Steve Barclay on operating new ‘integrated care boards’

Official figures show 7.1million people in England were in the queue for routine hospital treatment, such as hip and knee operations, by the end of September — the equivalent of one in eight people (red line). The figure includes more than 400,000 people who have been waiting, often in pain, for over one year (yellow bars)

NHS England data show just over 275,000 inpatients were given an operation or were treated in hospitals in August this year. It was down 6 per cent on the 293,000 average treated in the three months up to August in 2019

In 2014 Miss Hewitt apologised for having ‘got it wrong’ when it came to dealing with the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) when she was general secretary of the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL).

The two organisations were affiliated for eight years between 1975 and 1983.

A 1976 NCCL press release issued in her name proposed that the age of consent should be lowered to just 10 in some cases, and that incest should be abolished.

Miss Hewitt later said: ‘I take responsibility for the mistakes we made. I got it wrong on PIE and I apologise for having done so.

‘NCCL in the 1970s, along with many others, was naïve and wrong to accept PIE’s claim to be a ”campaigning and counselling organisation”.’

Patricia Hewitt in 1975 whilst working for National Council for Civil Liberties

Meanwhile, emergency care performance has deteriorated to fresh lows. More than 1,400 A&E attendees were forced to wait in more than 12 hours for care every day in October (yellow bars), while the lowest proportion ever recorded were seen within four hours — the NHS target (red line)

She was elected as the Labour MP for Leicester West 14 years after stepping down from the organisation and was quickly promoted to government.

However, she faced a tumultuous two years as health secretary due to the introduction of a controversial junior doctor application scheme and slashing NHS spending to balance the books. Her achievements included implementing the ban on smoking in public places.

After being sacked by Gordon Brown – and taking roles with major firms such as BT and Alliance Boots – she was named as one of the MPs in a ‘cash for access’ scandal.

During a sting operation by Channel 4 in 2010, she appeared to claim she was paid £3,000 a day to help a client obtain a seat on a government advisory group, and was subsequently suspended from Labour amid the allegations – though no further action was taken. 

Mr Hunt also announced yesterday that Sir Michael Barber, who advised the Blair administration on education before taking a leading role in delivering public services, was being drafted back into government.

While Miss Hewitt will advise the government ‘on how to make sure the new integrated care boards operate efficiently with appropriate autonomy and accountability’, Sir Michael will help reform Britain’s current skills programme.

Sir Michael, an experienced educationist, worked for Mr Blair for eight years before taking roles with educational publishing firm Pearson and becoming chairman of the Office for Students watchdog.