Dame Patricia Hope Hewitt (born 2 December 1948) is a British government adviser and former politician, who was the Secretary of State for Health from 2005 to 2007.

In March 2010, Hewitt was suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party over the question of political lobbying irregularities, alleged on the Channel 4 Dispatches programme.

In 1990, the Council of Europe ruled that MI5 surveillance of both Hewitt and the NCCL legal officer, Harriet Harman, had breached the European Convention of Human Rights.

[5][6] Hewitt joined the Labour Party in the 1970, and was initially a follower of Tony Benn; she publicly condemned those left-wing MPs who abstained in the deputy leadership election of 1981, giving Denis Healey a narrow victory.

In this role she was a key player in the first stages of the 'modernisation' of the Labour Party and, along with Clive Hollick, helped set up the Institute for Public Policy Research and was its deputy director 1989–1994.

She was promoted in 1999 to become a Minister of State for Small Business and E-Commerce at the Department of Trade and Industry,[10] and created the Social Enterprise Unit for similar new companies.

[citation needed] She joined the Blair Cabinet for the first time following the 2001 general election as the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry and Minister for Women and Equality.

[13] In September 2005, a Judicial Review found Hewitt "guilty of unlawful sex discrimination" when she employed a female applicant for a DTI position ahead of a significantly stronger male candidate.

Hewitt had quoted the Code of Practice on Public Appointments, which said: "Ministers will wish to balance boards in terms of diversity as well as skills and experience", although the panel had clearly stated that Mr Hanney was "much the strongest candidate".

She had a turbulent two years in office, during which several difficult issues arose, such as the controversy over the Medical Training Application Service computer system and her decision to allow women with early breast cancer to have access to trastuzumab (Herceptin), for which it was not at that time a licensed indication and in the absence of NICE guidance.

[17] However, she also achieved several pieces of Labour's 2005 manifesto legislation during her time in office, including persuading MPs to vote for a complete smoking ban in public places in England in 2006.

Delegates at the conference called for a halt to job cuts and bed closures, part of planned NHS reforms aimed at improving the effectiveness of the service, predicting that the number of posts lost could reach 13,000, and said that a work to rule was possible.

[18] The BMA chairman, James Johnson, claimed that 2006 was actually one of the worst years on record, and that "2006 has been full of bleak moments for the NHS – job losses, training budgets slashed, trusts delaying operations in order to save money, and hospital closures announced at the same time as new PFI developments.

Added to this the government's fixation with introducing the private sector into primary care which risks destabilising the well-respected UK system of general practice.

"[19] In January 2007, Hewitt criticised the pay of general practitioners (GPs), which had increased to an average of £106,000 per annum, as a result of the contract the Government had implemented in 2004.

On 3 April 2007, Hewitt apologised on BBC Radio 4's Today programme, saying that the application scheme had caused terrible anxiety for junior doctors.

However, the change offered by the Government to the scheme was not accepted by the BMA,[24] and she was accused by Andrew Lansley, the Conservative Shadow Minister for Health, of failing to express genuine regret.

[25] Hewitt also made another apology on 1 May 2007 in the House of Commons, after the suspension of the MTAS website, owing to security breaches, which she called "utterly deplorable".

Andy Belfield of East Midlands Unison stated that waiting list reductions achieved before the 2005 election were now at risk, owing to expansion of private sector involvement.

Even though he had been moved to Secretary of State for Defence, Reid was the main opponent of her proposals, and a leading figure in the decision of the Cabinet to grant an exemption for private clubs and pubs that did not serve food.

[48] In March 2010, Hewitt was suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party over the question of political lobbying irregularities, alleged in the Channel 4 Dispatches programme.

At the 2010 general election Hewitt was succeeded as MP for Leicester West by Liz Kendall, who had been her Special Adviser (SpAd) during her time in Cabinet.

Hewitt was one of the MPs named in the 2010 sting operation into political lobbying in the Channel 4 Dispatches programme, in which she appeared to claim that she had been paid £3,000 a day to help a client obtain a key seat on a Government advisory group.

[51] In November 2022, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Jeremy Hunt, announced that Hewitt would serve in an advisory role to the Conservative Government on NHS administration.

[53] On 27 February 2014, Hewitt in a statement apologised and took responsibility for the "mistakes" made, saying that she and the NCCL had been "naive" about PIE, while insisting that she had never "supported or condoned the vile crimes of child abusers".