What on earth is Lord Darzi doing? How dare he go sticking his nose in to something that he actually knows about. Why should he be the one to reform hospital care?

There is a fundamental rule in government that states ‘on no account should high-profile reviews be conducted by anyone who knows anything about the subject.’

Primary care has been subjected to the attentions of Lord Darzi for a number of controversial years now, and of course it has been highly irritating being told what to do by someone who knows nothing about primary care.

But that’s the whole point. It’s a fresh pair of eyes that’s needed. And it’s got to be someone who will really rile the practitioners in that field, because they need to be shaken up. They need to know who’s boss. They can’t possibly sort it out for themselves.

And finally it has to be someone who can go on Radio Four’s Desert Island Discs and really make a statement with their musical choices (Hidden Meanings in Darzi’s Desert Island Discs).

That’s why we had a top-level, high-tech, key-hole surgeon chosen to reform primary care. And that’s exactly why we should have a GP to put the boot in to secondary care.

So why, oh why, is the DoH smashing through the walls of convention by putting Darzi on the case of reforming hospitals?

If the DoH doesn’t want a GP, then surely Whitehall is bursting with health ministers who have virtually zero knowledge of the NHS, and I’m sure any one of them would be proud to do the job (depending on the expenses package).

Perhaps they just don’t want to upset hospital doctors. Perhaps they think everything is fine in secondary care. So we’ll just have to wait and see how much Lord Darzi wants to reform his mates.