In the first of Health Policy Insight’s series of interviews in the run-up to the publication of the revised 2010-11 NHS Operating Framework and the NHS Confederation annual conference, editor Andy Cowper talks to Nigel Edwards, acting chief executive of the NHS Confederation.

You may remember that we covered the issues around ex-chief executive John Watkinson's employment tribunal against his employer Royal Cornwall NHS Trust, and the reported involvement of Sir Ian Carruthers of NHS South West strategic health authority in his dismissal.

NHS South West were not happy about this as you might also recall.

The cuts have begun.

BBC News reports that the plan to rebuild North Tees and Hartleppool Hospital at a cost of £450 miliion has been cut completely, and that the Health Research Support Service initiative, with a budget of £73 million, has been suspended, pending the comprehensive spending review.

The message about cutting research and development sends a worrying signal.

Morning. No time for anything much yet today, so here are some links:

to a response piece I wrote for Guardian Public about not assuming entrepreneurialism will solve every NHS problem

In a recent Public Policy Projects discussion breakfast at the House of Commons, two speakers – a management consultant and former DH director and a current acute chief executive (anonymised on the Chatham House rule) – discussed their thoughts on the next stage of UK heath reform in economically straitened times.

The first speaker outlined four prerequisites for recovery:
1. building public consensus for political prioritisation of public spending
2. spare no sector from cuts of 10-15%

I have taken my eye off what is happening with Darzi centres - or polyclinics - or 8-8 GP-led health centres - or APMS centres. Which was unwise of me. The profusion of names should have given me a clue.

The basic concept - of creating something to enable improved access to GPs, primary care and diagnostics, particularly in poorer and traditionally under-doctored areas - was a good one. The roll-out - with the Sir David "look out to your communities, not up to Whitehall" Nicholson DH ordering every PCT to create one - was guaranteed to put some in the wrong places.

I'm not wildly bothered about homeopathy - or magic medicine, as its opponents term it. If water had a memory, it would be thoroughly reluctant to come out of the tap and pass through our bodies again. (Yes, I do live in London.)

I've only been offered it once - ironically, in medicines-mad France, when I was looking for a product for a teething daughter.

Professor Alan Maynard OBE minds the gap between political rhetoric about openness, choice and outcomes and the practical reality of lacking comparative data – and the implications for NHS redisorganisation.

The political rhetoric is of openness in all the workings of the NHS.

The practice is of avoiding confusing consumers with facts.

Both New Labour and the new Government must know that their advocacy of patient choice is empty cant unless consumers are informed about the risks involved in using healthcare facilities.

A loud bravo for The Guardian, which in this article, outs disparities in mortality rates for vascular surgery across the NHS in England.

The article shows that "some hospitals have unacceptably high mortality.

"It demonstrates the case for the closure of small hospital units, which the government has put on hold. Death rates vary from less than one in 50 in some hospitals to more than one in 10 in others".

In the new report, Axing And Taxing by the Social Market Foundation, there are three new ideas of varying quality.

The good ...
Their good idea is that public sector workers should contribute and extra 1% of salary into pension contributions. It would be reasonable to see further incremental contributions over a long timescale, but this is a sensible start on a massive problem for future generations.

... the bad ...