It has been learnt that Sir John Tooke, the man given the job of heading the 'independent' review of MMC and MTAS, was closely involved in the drawing up of MMC from the very beginning! He was a member of the MMC Academic Medicine Committee which was meant to have 'consulted widely with stakeholders to harness as broad a range of ideas as possible'. What a great job they did, the stakeholders are absolutely chuffed with MMC.It has already been pointed out that the first review of MTAS was nothing more than a sham. So these revelations cast yet more doubt on the claimed transparency of proceedings. Patricia Hewitt stated to the House of Commons this week:
'I am extremely grateful to Sir John for undertaking the review, and I stress once again that it will be completely independent.'
Is this another lie from Patricia? The conundrum here is that any genuinely objective and independent review would inevitably tear the MMC house down, hence the government are trying to avoid this at all costs. I fail to see how anything done by this review panel can be claimed to be independent if it is led by someone who was intimately involved in MMC from the beginning; while the quoted terms of reference appear reasonable, we have got used to wolf-like intentions being dressed up in sheeps clothing by this government.
