If Gordon Brown wants a new job come May 7, he could retrain to be a nurse manager. He successfully managed to get RCN activists off their arses twice in one afternoon yesterday.

We guarantee something you can’t legally enforce
This comes on the back of the comically odd new Labour health manifesto, Your Personal NHS Guarantee, launched yesterday.

Good evening. You will find another new instalment of Maynard Doctrine here, in which the good Professor addresses himself to the impact of slowing spending on the NHS budget.

I don't say "the likely impact" because almost nobody I've spoken to over the past couple of years seriously believes promises that the NHS budget will be protected. For all the warnings from ministers against conducting mini-spending reviews, the smarter ones have been modelling real-terms reductions.

Professor Alan Maynard OBE wonders whether the politicians vowing to protect NHS budgets are deceitful or stupid. He outlines the main options for the NHS to save some money.

Two of the main political parties have managed to keep the NHS off the election agenda by saying that they will protect and continue to grow its funding.

Is this downright deceit? Or merely the misguided hopes of optimists?

Safe hands holding the legacy of Tredegar bedpans

The Lib Dems have given their FOI stuff on managers’ bonuses to The Observer, leading to this not-wildly-shocking story about managers’ bonuses.

Hello. Today we are spoiling you, Ambassador.

Not with Ferrero Rocher, of course: that would be bad for your health.

No we are spoiling you with an extra, religious-reform-inspired dose of The Maynard Doctrine for you.

And then we are spoiling you some more, because HPI associate director Tom Smith has contributed this commentary on yesterday’s ‘Great Health Debate’ at the Kings Fund.

Health Policy Insight welcomes back associate director Tom Smith, with this timely and thoughtful instalment of Health Policy Today considering the health secretary wannabe election debate

"Andy", "Norman" or "Andrew"? Which Health Secretary wannabe can make omelettes without breaking eggs?

The men who would be health secretary gripped adjacent lecterns on a stage at the King's Fund yesterday. It took place nine hours before the party leaders kicked off a debate with a much greater influence on the outcome of the election.

Civitas think tank, which has been doing some good work on health for some time, held a lunchtime seminar-cum-debate on the topic ‘Who (should) run the NHS?’

The presentation was given by a former senior regulator whose departure was long-trailed (yes, it was Chatham House Rules, so no names, no packdrill).

It was fascinating. Here is a summary of the presentation.

The presentation

Health debate's been poor to date (I'll have a look at the health hustings done by the Kings Fund, Confed and RCN later on), but just at the moment, the Clegg Factor has brought some nice scenes to the election montage.

The first is a marvellous toys-exiting-pram incident by the News International posse. Oh dear. They don't like it up them, do they?

Professor Alan Maynard OBE suggests that reforms to improve and incentivise commissioning should be based on evidence. What is not going to help is a faith-based cut-and-paste from Holland.

There is universal concern over - if not condemnation of - the quality of ‘commissioning’ in healthcare.

The instant reaction to this story about a Republican US senatorial wannabe, who suggests that patients should barter with their doctors with the offer of a chicken, is that it's been published 21 days late.

But it is a true story. Very amused, and not a little bit scared.