Editor's blog Wednesday 21 October 2015: Andrew Lansley, management consultant

"Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Prize" - Tom Lehrer

The Guardiannoticed the ACOBA report on The Lord Lansley CBE's extracurricular business activities.

Andrew Lansley (saviour, liberator) is going to be a management consultant.

Yes, you read that right.

No, it's not 1 April.

He's going to work for Bain and Company, whose disapproving review of the slowdown in NHS private sector contracts was published recently by the Financial Times.

Bain found the contract growth in 2012-13 and 2013-14 "exuberant"; their head of health, Christian Mazzi telling the FT that the NHS would have been better to pursue smaller deals and move more slowly in its rush to embrace the private sector. Bain research found that about 70 per cent of CCGs had failed to monitor private sector contracts or enforce standards.

"Immaturity in the market"
Mr Mazzi's remarks to the Pink 'Un are illuminating: "The NHS was handing over the keys to the private sector, and while that sounds great, it is not that easy. It did not have the capacity or capability to move that quickly. There was an exuberance about it. But you need the procedures in place to be able to hold the outsourcers to account”.

Private providers' prominent failures on NHS contracts, such as those of Circle at Hinchingbrooke and Serco in Cornwall and Suffolk, were "a byproduct of moving too fast and risked a political backlash ... we are seeing private sector companies walk away and say they cannot make any money. It is a sign of immaturity in the market”.

Low Associates' communications consultant
Our Savour And Liberator is also going to work for his wife's firm, Low Associates. The ACOBA documents state that OSAL will "provide consultancy expertise on competition, economic regulation, health and social care, local government and the communications industry”.

Mmmmm. The communications industry.

Andrew "I'm sorry if what I'm setting out to do hasn't communicated itself" Lansley, communications consultant? Form an orderly queue.

There is a fun nugget of back-story here: when KPMG made the smart move of hiring Stephen Dorrell, Our Savour And Libverator let it be known that he was extremely aggreived that he had been overlooked for such a role.

In Bain and Co, OSAL appears to have found a client either ignorant or indifferent to the Government's panicked, traumatised response to his NHS reforms, and to Simon Stevens' determined ignoring of them at every turn.

It is a baleful thought that, having created such a mess of health reform domestically, Our Saviour And Liberator may now get to advise other health systems internationally on reform. Potential clients may find that OSAL-inspired reforms become the Bain of their lives.