President of US healthcare firm praises white paper's pro-market agenda

Simon Stevens, an NHS policy special advisor under Tony Blair, has welcomed the health white paper as a natural extension of the New Labour agenda.

Writing in the Financial Times, Mr Stevens, now president of Global Health at US healthcare firm, UnitedHealth, said the new plans built on many of the past decade's reforms, but also went much further.

On market choice, pro-competitive market regulation and the severing of day-to-day political control of the NHS, the white paper had outstripped Labour's reforms.

However, said Mr Stevens, it had also moved decisively towards fulfilling Mr Blair's own plans 'in a way that Mr Blair was blocked from doing by internal opposition within his own "virtual coalition" government'.

Mr Stevens added: 'No other country has tried to hand the system-wide budget for hospital care to family doctors, but there are considerable attractions. England's 8,000 private GP practices are trusted by patients, and their prescribing and referral decisions drive a big chunk of health spending. In practice, GPs will need expert commissioning support to help fulfil that potential - including from other private-sector partners.'