The Rothschild Report

DB wrote this introductory note to the Archivist on transfer of the papers to the Contemporary Medical Archives Centre. Papers on `Rothschild Mark I'. These papers go back to the years 1973-1977, when I had responsibility as `Chief Scientist' in the DHSS for implementing the Rothschild `customer-contractor principle', so far as it concerned research funded by the DHSS. The mechanism then was the transfer of funds from the MRC to the DHSS, with the aim of giving the DHSS `control' over part of MRC research. The transfer fund arrangement was happily abandoned around 1978 (my contribution I think being the characteristic one of showing that it didn't work). But the equally nonsensical, though more plausible, device of the `consumer-contractor principle' survives, and indeed to all our sorrow has been extended to the NHS. The papers include:- 1) The original Rothschild Report and White Paper which virtually accepted it. 2) One or two papers by myself commenting on the affair, written both before and after my resc

1971-1991

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