Veteran health service manager Ken Jarrold retires at the end of December, but he is not going meekly. His valedictory speech to the Institute of Health Management last week was a powerful critique of the NHS under new Labour.

Jarrold skewered Labour's failings unerringly: policy incoherence, thoughtless structural change, and no effective financial management.

Most startling was his assessment of the corrosive effect of targets: "There is bullying and harassment at all levels. The drive to deliver has become, in some places, an opportunity for inappropriate behaviour. Performance management is not a value-free zone."

But Jarrold, who has occupied several top management posts in a 36-year NHS career, is no old-school curmudgeon. Labour had rescued the NHS from gentle decline, he said. It is now more patient centred, waiting lists are shorter, and clinical standards are generally higher. "I do not look back on a golden age of the NHS before the wickedness of modernisation," he said. Deal with the problems, he concluded, and the prospects for the NHS are bright.