Media Watch: for Lansley, the wait is over

The broadsheets all reported that the health secretary would officially outlaw the practice from 31 March 2012 and threaten to sack primary care trust chairs who did not comply.

The Financial Times ran an exclusive interview with returning shadow health secretary Andy Burnham under its version of the waiting times story.

Mr Burnham told the paper he had “developed a real love of the NHS over the years”, remained a friend of the private sector and saw his “broader mission” as reshaping the NHS to deal with challenges, such as mental health problems, which were not part of its original post-war focus.

Meanwhile the Daily Mail warned that “fraudsters”, namely doctors and dentists, were “fleecing” the NHS of £3bn a year through payments for invented shifts and treatments.

Managers were also berated for “looking the other way” rather than tackling the problem. The story was based on a report from right wing think tank 2020Health.

The most intriguing headline, however, was “NHS chief’s trust pays his wife for horse training”. The Daily Telegraph story, which also appeared in Private Eye, reported that Imperial College Healthcare Trust in London had paid around £55,000 to a company owned by its chief executive’s wife to teach managers about leadership by “using the example of horses”.

The “equine guided leadership” courses are run by Redlands Equestrian, a company owned by Karen Johnson whose husband is Imperial interim chief executive Mark Davies, the paper reported.

Ms Johnson also owns Coalescence Consulting, the company that recommended the courses to the trust.

Imperial told the paper it had commissioned the services “in line with normal processes prior to the appointment of Mark Davies”. 

Coalescence Consulting told the Telegraph: “Horses have unique qualities that make them ideally suited to helping us learn about ourselves as leaders.”