LAUSR

Stephen Hawking and Jeremy Hunt’s public argument in August over the future of the NHS and use of data led to some hard hitting claims and strong accusations on both sides.12 In the aftermath of the spat the management consultant Stephen Black wrote a provocative piece on the current state of debate about the NHS.3 Black’s thesis was that we can’t move forward with constructive solutions to the problems facing our health and care system if the debate is reduced to falsely polarised, oversimplified arguments that are based on ideology rather than on pragmatism. I don’t always agree with Black’s managerialist approach and have clashed with him before,4 but his argument deserves consideration. If we are sincere about protecting …