Alasdair Liddell

Who was Alasdair Liddell?

Alasdair Donald MacDuff Liddell CBE was one of the architects of Britain's health strategy in the 1990s. As Director of Planning at the Department of Health he led the process of setting national priorities for the National Health Service. He resigned, reputedly over policy differences with ministers, and subsequently acted as an advisor to health charities like the King's Fund and to health sector companies and consultancies. He was Senior Counsel to Bell Pottinger Group and was non-executive Deputy Chairman of Healthcare Locums plc, effectively taking executive responsibility in early 2011 when the company was found to have financial irregularities leading to the suspension of the company's chief executive Kate Bleasedale.

Liddell was educated at Fettes College in Edinburgh, and Balliol College, Oxford. He moved from the voluntary sector to health management and as chief of the East Anglian Regional Health Authority he pioneered the Rubber Windmill, a simulation involving large numbers of clinicians, health managers, journalists and others over several days, which tested the government's plans to introduce internal markets to the NHS.