It is a sign of the political times that the single most powerful individual in health, ministers aside, is Downing Street policy adviser Robert Hill: not a health professional or a civil servant, but a "special adviser" accountable only to his boss, prime minister Tony Blair.
Mr Hill's writ runs large over health policy and yet he is virtually unknown outside Whitehall and Westminster. His influence will dramatically shape the future of the NHS, but neither he nor his employer is obliged to divulge anything about his work, his decisions or even himself.
Women make up 80% of the NHS workforce, but none wield any serious power over health policy. The service may be undergoing its most radical changes for 50 years, but the people who influence this reform are, as ever, predominantly white, male and middle aged.
The most influential woman in the NHS, the Royal College of Nursing general secretary Christine Hancock, has announced that she is to retire next summer - and there is no guarantee that her replacement will be a woman, let alone an individual with comparable stature and leverage.
And while patients are rhetorically central to the NHS plan, no individual representing consumer interests is connected to high-level NHS power networks; rather, power is concentrated in the hands of central government and producer interests - the trade unions and professional associations.
The presence of Paul Dacre, editor of the Daily Mail and tribune for middle England, is an indication of how powerful the media has become in directing the tone, timing and nature of government policy decisions and announcements. Health is no exception.
The only ethnic minority power player is Chai Patel, a private health sector businessman of Indian parentage. Incidentally, he is the only individual in the top 15 to have made a registered donation to the Labour Party - he gave at least £5,000 in 1999.
The list contains some individuals who are arguably ciphers for institutional power. It is no disrespect to Alastair Bridges to assert that his influence depends on his role as field commander of the Treasury tank battalion currently parked on Department of Health lawns. Others, such as Professor George Alberti, transcend institutional power. As president of the Royal College of Physicians, his influence rests not there but as a trusted ministerial adviser and fixer who has credibility with the medical establishment.
Analysis of the professional backgrounds of the NHS Power 15 reveals that medicine and NHS management supply most of the key players. Including Patel, there are five qualified doctors. Including Simon Stevens, and Hancock, there are five with NHS management experience. Of the 15, only Unison head of health Bob Abberley, who was a hospital operating theatre assistant, and Hancock, who was a nurse, have hands-on experience of the NHS outside medicine and management.
Notable omissions from the top 15 are anyone with specialist expertise and influence in mental health, cancer, and heart disease - the government's three principle priorities for investment.
The list is inevitably invidious. Powerful individuals who just missed the cut include: Sir Donald Irvine, chairman of the General Medical Council; Sir Richard Sykes, chairman of Glaxo Wellcome; and Dr Mac Armstrong, former British Medical Association secretary, now Scotland's chief medical officer. Not far behind comes Rabbi Julia Neuberger, director of the King's Fund health policy think tank; Ian Carruthers, chief executive of East Dorset health authority and doyen of NHS managers; Denise Platt, chief inspector of social services; and Mike Richards, NHS national cancer director.
Finally, no list of powerful people would be complete without a conspiracy theory. Although there is no evidence of an actual conspiracy, an astonishing proportion of influential doctors come from health secretary Alan Milburn's and Blair's north-east stamping ground: Messrs Alberti, Rawlins, Donaldson and Irvine.
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