Abstract
David Owen was Labour Health Minister 1974-76 and now sits as an independent social democrat in the House of Lords. Before entering Parliament he trained as a medical doctor at St Thomas’s Hospital, London, where he was Clinical Neurologist and Psychiatric Registrar. He has championed the NHS throughout its existence and is now a powerful advocate for its reinstatement to its original purpose. In this extract from his 2014 book The Health of the Nation, NHS in Peril, David Owen sets out the consequences of the 2012 Health and Social Care Act for the haemophilia community.