John Marks: outspoken former chair of the BMA, campaigner, and moderniser

bmj;379/oct05_13/o2393/FAF1faCredit: Nick SinclairThere is, it is reported, a convention to bestow honours on BMA chairs. John Marks, with a record six years in office from 1984, might have been tipped for a knighthood. But his outspoken clashes with high profile figures, especially his arch enemy, Health Secretary Kenneth Clarke, did not endear him to Westminster.ClashesMarks led the profession against Clarke’s reforming plans to introduce to the NHS the untried concept of an internal market to promote competition. More than 30 years later, Marks declared, “He bloody well helped to introduce the internal market into the NHS and that will spell its end.” Marks lived just long enough to see the announcement in July of the introduction of integrated care systems, with their new mantra—collaboration not competition.He delivered another stinging rebuke against the health secretary at a London seminar, when Clarke listed many of the NHS’s achievements. Marks, stressing how cataract…
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