On my way home from a wonderful lunch in honour of Andrew Roth, author of Parliamentary Profiles and Westminster Confidential. Today is Andrew's 90th birthday, and despite an eight-year working partnership on mty old stomping ground of British Journal of Healthcare Management, our first meeting.

The word 'legend' is much over-used, but it's not about him. Thank you Andrew, and a very Happy Birthday.

Leadership is one of those qualities that are hard to analyse. It is hard to define but very easy to feel.

Leadership is so often conceptualised in military terms. Put simply, you couldn’t run an army without severely hierarchical command-and-control structures, where deference to authority is beaten into trainees hard. People know and are well-trained in their jobs, and know who will be making the decisions.

”We will protect our investment in schools and hospitals” – Chancellor Alastair Darling

Good afternoon. I have again been away - apologies if you missed me. I have missed me too.

Professor Alan Maynard OBE challenges the Whitehall Village People to evaluate their initiatives around quality for cost-effectiveness

The Government has recognised that ‘it ain’t what you spend, it’s the way you have spent it’ that matters to patients. They are interested in whether healthcare makes you “better” or, as Hippocrates and Florence Nightingale both emphasised, does no harm!

Hospital healthcare harms one in ten

Good evening - a very quick one, to alert you to the arrival of fresh Maynard Doctrine, and to promise you something on Channel 4's The Hospital tomorrow. Once I feel a bit less demoralised by it.

Professor Alan Maynard argues for equitable distribution of recessionary pain, warning that those in well-paid jobs, including doctors, will not be immune from attention

The rate of exchange of the UK pound for the euro and US dollar has declined by thirty per cent. This is increasing the cost of imports to the healthcare sector - and the cost of living, as imported staples such as tea, coffee and sugar increase in price.

Hello, and what a nice day. And welcome if you've come from OnMedica, with whom I will be sharing a 'review of the month' feature on an ongoing basis. Look around and enjoy yourselves. Let us know what you think - editorial@healthpolicyinsight.com

There are a couple of good April Fool Stories over at the excellent E Health Media. But below is my review of March 2009.

In contrast to Saturday's Gerry Robinson-fest, the Telegraph today managed to do quite a lot better by getting Professor Nick Bosanquet of Imperial and Reform, to give a much more reasoned critique.

Nick suggests six reforms, which are:
1. clarify NHS spending much better - ensure all NHS organisations, and particularly commissioning bodies (which as of 2010 will be all PCTs will remain)

Oh ... for fuck's sake.

Really.

For. Fuck's. Sake.

Sigh. There I was this morning, browsing the day's news, and the Daily Telegraph chose to piss on the chips of my day, with an opinion piece for zombie for self-love Gerry Robinson, once again telling us how to fix the NHS. Because it really worked brilliantly the last couple of times.

Hello. A fairly brief one today - the FT has some very thoughtful features on health, which are well worth a read.