“The decision of the European Court of Justice finally draws a line under years of legal wrangling which has been to the detriment of women.”That should come as a relief to her legal department, currently fighting 109 sexual discrimination cases brought by men in local courts. The judges confirmed that EU law allowed governments to take action to redress inequality between men and women in the work-place, “provided that an objective assessment of each individual candidate, irrespective of their sex, is assured”.”This is an historic day for women in Europe,” said Ilse Ridder-Melchers, equal opportunities minister of North Rhine-Westphalia. The court decided the law was not unfair to men because, while it gave women candidates priority, it did not give them automatic, unconditional preference.The affirmative action law only applied to the public sector, and only in cases where men outnumber women in senior jobs. The European Commission declared it a setback for women’s rights and vowed to push for clearer legislation across the Community.How clear it is now will no doubt be a matter of protracted – and lucrative – legal argument.

Unlike the Bremen case, the judges ruled, Mr Marschall’s employment were not operating an “automatic” selection system. From Ireland to Greece, employers promoting positive discrimination found themselves breaking the law. Mr Marschall took the regional authorities, the Land of North Rhine-Westphalia, to court. The local judiciary were unable to unravel the complexities of the case, and passed the buck upwards.Everyone thought Mr Marschall could not lose. Two years ago, a civil servant from Bremen, Eckhard Kalanke, had won a similar case in Luxembourg against his employers. It has concluded from this that priority given to equally-qualified women … is not contrary to Community law.”
It is all the fault of one man unable to come to terms with rejection.

Three years ago, Hellmuth Marschall, then 39-year old teacher at a German comprehensive school, applied for promotion and lost out – to a woman. “A victory for women,” proclaimed Karin Junker, a German Social Democrat MEP. Padraig Flynn, the EU’s social affairs and employment commissioner, purred with delight: “The Court has recognised that certain deep-rooted prejudices and stereotypes as to the role and capacities of women in working life still persist. A court in Luxembourg struck a blow for women’s right to jump the job-queue, shattering glass ceilings in offices across the continent. The all-male judges of the European Court ruled yesterday that positive discrimination was a Good Thing; that unequal treatment of job applicants was an acceptable means for achieving “equal opportunity”. In its place, the White Paper envisages tighter management from the centre based on measurements of hospital performance.

Tough questions would be asked where hospitals deviated significantly from the norm.An example cited is the Government’s response to the Exeter breast-screening scandal, in which mammograms were misread and some women developed cancer that should have been detected.A National Institute for Clinical Effectiveness is also proposed to mastermind a drive to improve quality and ensure doctors are kept up to date with latest developments.Leading article, page 20. They will be given a new role devising health improvement programmes with locally-agreed targets as part of the Government’s public health strategy.The abolition of the internal market and the loss of competition between NHS trusts removes an important lever to efficiency in the NHS. They will have service agreements with local hospitals – contracts by another name – and may switch them if the service provided is not up to scratch. They will replace the existing system of GP fundholding, under which individual practices hold their own budgets, which has been blamed for increasing inequity in the NHS.Existing health authorities, whose number is likely to be cut, will be left only with the budget for “tertiary” services – specialist treatments such as heart transplants – which account for less than 10 per cent of total NHS spending. No timescale is put on the changes which are seen as evolutionary, not revolutionary.The GP collectives, which will function as mini-health authorities, will vary in size according to local geography and need.

Each collective will number around 50 GPs serving about 100,000 population and will hold a single budget for hospital, primary and community care.The single budget will mean the GPs can decide whether to hire more community nurses so people can be cared for in their homes or spend more on prescribing rather than sending patients to hospital.Ministers believe a model is provided by the strategy for improving cancer services drawn up by Sir Kenneth Calman, the chief medical officer, in 1995, which aims to ensure all patients have access to high-quality specialist services.The aim is to break down the “Berlin walls” which separate health and community care, in Secretary of State for Health Frank Dobson’s phrase, whose separate budgets mean patients cannot easily be transferred between them. This has led to hospital beds blocked by patients who should be cared for at home. Billions of pounds are to be transferred to local groups of family doctors in a fundamental shake-up of the health service. Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor, reveals an ambitious plan to break down the barriers between hospitals, GPs and community services. An overhaul of the NHS more radical than expected is proposed in a government White Paper due for publication before the end of the year, details of which have been leaked to The Independent.