Alasdair Donald MacDuff Liddell CBE (15 January 1949 – 31 December 2012) was one of the architects of Britain's health strategy in the 1990s.
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 (and found wanting) the government's plans to introduce internal markets to the NHS.
Liddell's simulation idea has since been used repeatedly to assess the impact of the market-based reforms, notably for the King's Fund in 2007.
[citation needed] He was senior counsel to Bell Pottinger 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.
After the 1997 election he led the team supporting Ministers in laying the foundations for much of current government policy for the NHS.