The latest HSJ captions its front cover picture of new Monitor chair Steve Bundred, late of the Audit Commission, with the phrase ‘No Cheerleader’.

Their interview gives Bundred the chance to signal that he will be no Bill Moyes in his approach.

What is the official government policy now on national NHS targets?

And are Prime Minister David Cameron and Health Secretary Andrew Lansley singing from the same hymn sheet?

There are reasonable arguments on both sides of the targets debate in healthcare. In a 2009 debate feature in the BMJ, Gwyn Bevan of the LSE suggested that targets are broadly unproblematic; James Gubb of Civitas had many reservations.

I'm not able to access PMQs directly, but according to a man I would trust without reservation, Michael White of The Guardian, Prime Minister David Cameron promised to keep community hospitals open earlier today.

UPDATE: Hansard now online - reads,
Q9. [000434] Neil Carmichael (Stroud) (Con): Noting the very high standards of professional care in the NHS in Stroud, may I ask the Prime Minister to lend his support to the Stroud maternity unit?

What a surprise. Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust is appealing against the findings of the Employment Tribunal that its former CE John Watkinson was unfairly dismissed.

Hello. I've had a day off - it was great.

Firstly, may I draw your attention to some good things. You will find another instalment of Maynard Doctrine for your edification and entertainment. The good professor discusses the theory about why bigger hospitals should have higher costs.

You should also look at the National Patient Safety Agency's 10 for 2010 campaign. Their list of attention areas is a sound one:

Blimey - the Greek government are cutting medicine prices by 25%.

Less surprising that pharma companies are exiting the market.

Just noticed this on BBC News through being overseas. It mIght get some traction in the UK press tomorrow ...

Kingsley Amis once famously wrote in July 1960's Encounter magazine about higher education, "more will mean worse".

If you read this website regularly, you already know that such a belief about healthcare is not at home here.

Hello. Hope you're well and looking forward to a bank holiday weekend full of high-profile policy announcements (just kidding - I hope).

You may remember that I wrote briefly about the hospital standardised mortality ratio (HSMR) debate some weeks back.

Today, I caught a very good section of BBC Radio 4's consistently excellent More Or Less, about this issue.

You've seen the recent announcement that SHAs are to be abolished (or more likely, to be migrated to regional branches of the independent commissioning board, avoiding redundancy costs).

Which might be thought annoying in regard to my recent interest in why the SHA assurance process appeared to have been stopped in its tracks.

But I would suggest it is not any kind of wild goose chase.

Morning, all.

Southend University Hospitals NHS FT has previously been somewhat famous in NHS managementland as the only foundation trust to date to derogate from Agenda for Change (AfC) terms and conditions, locally negotiating its deal with staff.

The staff voted for this in June 2006, and appear to be generally content. In 2008, all staff got a flat rate £295 "gainshare" bonus each, in recognition for the Trust overall hitting a range of targets.