In a turbulent week where we bask in the heat of both sunshine and World Cup fever, it will also have been noticed that the longest serving Secretary of State for Health has moved on to the Foreign Office.
It is difficult to gauge whether this is likely to have any influence on eye care provision. Indeed, Hunt’s history in the role seems to be best summed up as a series of contrasting highs and lows against a backdrop of ever-dwindling health funding.
Initial fears among many of us about the job going to someone who, at the time of his appointment, had professed a belief in homeopathy were soon balanced by a very calculated and objective handling of the Mid-Staff’s scandal from which some key lessons were learned about local health provision and autonomy.
His acceptance of the need for greater efficiencies in health spending was not so extreme as to blind him of the very obvious fact that year on year austerity cuts were leading to a serious threat to health care.
Only a cynic would suggest that the recent championing of the massive cash injection he argued for in the coming years was purely for vote-winning purposes. Where efficiencies involved increased use of community and primary care allied professionals, as implied in the five-year plan for the NHS, Hunt seemed supportive. However, where he raised questions about the dedication and working hours of junior doctors, he seemed combative and confrontational and out of touch with both professional and public mood.
In the end, though, however a steady hand he may be described as having had, he has represented the growing influence of market forces and commercial profit into what many, after 70 years, still maintain should be a fully public funded service provision free for all at the point of access. And I am not going to mention that James Naughtie interview...
