By politics.co.uk staff

A senor health adviser has issued a blistering attack on Andrew Lansley as he steps down from his role.

Sir Roger Boyle, who retired as the government's national director of heart disease at the weekend, said the health secretary had no mandate and threatened the NHS with his obsession with market forces.

"The allegiances [of the private companies] will be to their shareholders, not to the users of the services," he told the Independent.

"If the market was going to work, the Americans would have cracked it."

The health secretary's plans for NHS reform, which will return to the Commons in September, were "the ideas of one man acting without an electoral mandate", he added.

Sir Roger said Mr Lansley only visited him for the first time two weeks ago, despite a slashing of the death rate for heart disease by 50% and reduced waiting times with a minimum of private sector involvement.