Hamish Meldrum, chair of the council of the very mainstream and small-c conservative British Medical Association, has condemned "ill-conceived plans and dogma-driven policies" in the NHS.
In his speech on 28 June at the BMA's annual meeting in Brighton, he slammed "incoherent and divisive market-based policies that pit trusts against each other, secondary against primary care, increase costs and, in many cases, duplicate existing services.
"Lucrative contracts for ISTCs – independent sector treatment centres – that are paid for up-front yet don't deliver on activity, often because there was no need for them in the first place.
"And new, so-called GP-led health centres, which often enjoy multiple times the funding per patient of regular GP practices, despite in many cases, very few patients registering with them."
All those market-based policies were brought in by New Labour, after it U-turned from its initial commitment to reverse the Tories' "internal market" policy. Now the Lib/Tory government is likely to push market policies further, and within much tighter budget limits.