IS THERE A DOCTOR IN THE HOUSE?

With the Labour leadership battle currently grabbing all the headlines, you would think that the various Westminster departments would take the chance have a little bit of a rest. Not Patricia Hewitt, whose tenure at the Department of Health could be coming to a rather sickly end. Despite claiming only a few weeks ago that the MTAS system (Medical Training Application Service) was not a sick and dying patient, she has quietly wheeled into the hospital corridor to slowly pass away. In a statement released yesterday to the press and not the House of Commons where she would have been cross examined, Hewitt announced that the programme had been suspended and that doctors would have to apply for jobs through the proven means of a CV. Like a doctor delivering bad news, Hewitt thought she could sneak this little snippet past the press whilst it was navel gazing over Blair’s successor. Wrong! After millions of taxpayers pounds having been spent on yet another technological fiasco and with many doctors facing unemployment or jobs abroad, Hewitt has shown poor political judgement and a stark disregard for Parliament. Her attitude is a continuation of the Blair inspired disregard for accountability, and also an indication that she has also lost control of her Department. Hopefully Brown will have noticed this, think hard who he appoints as head of a troubled and bankrupt department.