Health tsars: more like Peter the Great than Ivan the Terrible

doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7432.0-e

BMJ 2004;328 (17 January), doi:10.1136/bmj.328.7432.0-e

Health tsars: more like Peter the Great than Ivan the Terrible

In 1999 the Department of Health appointed the first of ninehealth tsars to help shape a variety of services from primarycare to cancer, heart disease, and services for children andolder people. This was the first time clinicians could directchange at a national level from a department of the government.Five years down the line Burke (p 126) asked them to summarisetheir achievements and other people to assess their work. Inan accompanying editorial Burns (p 117), the former cancer tsarfor Scotland, tells us what it takes to be a tsar: be open toideas and have money to spend, but also be ready to take jealousyand hostility from some of your colleagues.