Frank Dobson obituary

In 1997 Dobson was appointed by Tony Blair to take the helm at the Department of Health. He oversaw one of the largest hospital building programmes in the NHS’s history.Photograph: Dave Gadd/Sportsphoto/AllstarThe former health secretary Frank Dobson, who has died aged 79, devoted his lifetime in politics to giving practical effect to the socialist principles he had always held and from which he never deviated. He described himself as a member of the “sane left” within the Labo