Table Of ContentThe NHS: Beginning, Middle and End?
The autobiography of Dr John Marks
The NHS: Beginning, Middle and End?
The autobiography of Dr John Marks
JOHN MARKS
Foreword by
NICHOLAS TIMMINS
Public Policy Editor
Financial Times
Radcliffe Publishing
Oxford (cid:129) New York
Radcliffe Publishing Ltd
18 Marcham Road
Abingdon
Oxon OX14 1AA
United Kingdom
www.radcliffe-oxford.com
Electronic catalogue and worldwide online ordering facility.
© 2008 John Marks
John Marks has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998 to be
identifi ed as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system
or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording
or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN-13: 978 184619 272 2
Typeset by Pindar New Zealand (Egan Reid), Auckland, New Zealand
Printed and bound by TJI Digital, Padstow, Cornwall, UK
Contents
Foreword vii
Acknowledgements ix
CHAPTER 1 1925–1943 My childhood and life as an evacuee 1
CHAPTER 2 University and the army 13
CHAPTER 3 From lorry driver to principal in general practice 33
CHAPTER 4 My involvement in abortion law reform 43
CHAPTER 5 I get further involved in medical politics 50
CHAPTER 6 I get started in medical politics at the national level 57
CHAPTER 7 A Royal College, an academic approach and a doctorate 70
CHAPTER 8 Early attempts at NHS reform and heart transplants 78
CHAPTER 9 An outdated constitution and Sir Paul Chambers’ report 83
CHAPTER 10 I become involved in national negotiations 90
CHAPTER 11 I appear before a disciplinary body and I lose some
friends 101
CHAPTER 12 I represent the profession at home and abroad 108
CHAPTER 13 AIDS and the BMA 117
CHAPTER 14 A Royal sesquicentennial year 124
CHAPTER 15 International problems and political speculation 133
CHAPTER 16 Two crises and one election 139
CHAPTER 17 Princess Diana opens the library and I have a rough
ARM 153
CHAPTER 18 The approaching storm 166
CHAPTER 19 A storm breaks: The White Paper 178
CHAPTER 20 The profession rejects the Reforms 189
CHAPTER 21 The campaign continues 203
CHAPTER 22 The Bill and reactions to it 211
CHAPTER 23 The campaign continues: mysterious faxes and
the Oxford debate 215
CHAPTER 24 My last few months in the chair 222
CHAPTER 25 I am a past Chairman 230
CHAPTER 26 A variety of activities including boxing and lecturing
and a disputed SRM 238
CHAPTER 27 Doctors in the Dock 251
CHAPTER 28 A quiet retirement, a general election and a
question mark 260
Index 267
Foreword
JOHN MARKS IS SOMETHING OF A NATIONAL TREASURE. WARM, FUNNY,
passionate, opinionated and occasionally contrary, he is a man whose life
for more than forty years marched in beat with that of the National Health
Service.
The son of a publican – like John Moore, a Conservative secretary of state for
health with whom he was later to tangle – he qualifi ed as a doctor on ‘vesting
day’: July 5 1948, the day the NHS started.
It was a fi tting joint incarnation. For over the next 40 years and more, John
Marks lived through the NHS’s history, from its earliest days when patients
came in demanding wigs and cotton wool now that the service was free, through
his rise in medical politics, to become chairman of council of the British Medical
Association – and arguably one of its most successful ones.
There is scarcely a medical issue or controversy – whether ones which purely
affected the BMA or others that were played out on the national stage in the full
beam of the media spotlight – in which John Marks was not involved.
Abortion law reform, the doctors’ 1970s revolt against the General Medical
Council, the foundation of the Royal College of General Practitioners, countless
NHS reorganisations, and the bloody battle over NHS pay beds and the pay of
junior doctors – which saw medics take industrial action for the fi rst time – are
just a sample.
Then there was the fi erce, principled battle over how the medical profession
and the public should respond to the terror of a new disease – AIDS. And the
great war that was fought over the Conservatives introduction of market forces
into the NHS in the late 1980s and early 1990s – an approach to running the
—vii—
FOREWORD
NHS that lives on, reincarnated, under the current Labour government.
In all of these John Marks played more than a walk-on part. In many he was
a principal actor.
For anyone wanting fully to understand the BMA’s role in all this, this book
is thus required reading. But it is much more than just a dry history of times
past. It is laced with anecdote, from the horrifying – the level of some of the
training and medical practice 50 and more years ago – to the hilarious, and on
to high politics.
Through it all John Marks’ effervescent personality and his commitment to
the NHS shine through – even if both of those were to lead him into confl ict
with others, such as Kenneth Clarke, the Conservative Health Secretary, who
would claim with equal passion that they too shared the same ideals.
Ken Clarke once observed that the BMA is ‘just another trade union, and
actually one of the nastiest I have ever dealt with’. Others will make their own
assess ment of that judgement. But John Marks’ account of his life and times
provides a contrary view – the tale of a warm, human, liberal and occasionally
buccaneering man whose passion for life and causes leaves even those who do
not always agree with him eager to count him among their friends.
Nicholas Timmins
Public Policy Editor, Financial Times
March 2008
—viii—
Acknowledgements
MANY YEARS AGO THE THEN EDITOR OF THE British Medical Journal
(BMJ), Stephen Lock, said everyone should write their own obituary. In line
with that advice I did so in 2006. My wife Shirley suggested that I should
expand it into a short history of my life for my family. Once I started writing
and researching I realised that I had committed myself to producing a full book.
Gordon MacPherson, a former deputy editor of the BMJ and medico-political
commentator under his nom de plume of ‘Scrutator’, and Tim Albert, a former
editor of BMA News Review, both gave me helpful advice.
At a chance meeting with Ian Black, President of the Men’s Health Forum,
at a rally in support of junior hospital doctors in February 2007, he suggested
that Radcliffe Publishing might be interested in my book and later in the year I
con tacted Gillian Nineham. She and her colleagues have been very helpful and
sup portive to me.
However, unbeknown to him, one man is directly responsible for the writing
of this book. At the time of my election as Chairman of Council of the British
Medical Association (BMA), a long-standing friend David Podro was the owner
of International Press Cutting Bureau. Within days of my taking offi ce I started
receiving huge numbers of free press cuttings relating to my activities. Those I
selected to keep fi lled 17 scrapbooks. This gift continued until my replacement
by Jeremy Lee-Potter and it provided a wonderful source of concrete evidence for
statements in the book. I am deeply grateful for his kindness and generosity.
I am grateful to the following for allowing me to quote extracts from their
publications: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, Victor Gollancz, an imprint of The
Orion Publishing Group, Times Series Newspapers, Daily Mail, The House
—ix—
