Tom Smith offers a review of policy trends in the latest instalment of Health Policy Today

On today's Daily Politics the Daily Mirror's political editor Kevin McGuire offered his predictions for the year ahead. “2008 was dominated by the economy and Barack Obama”. His prediction for 2009? “Politics will be dominated by the economy and Barack Obama.”

It’s great that primary care trusts have been busy rebranding. My local PCT has now become NHS Suffolk, which is slightly more likely to mean something to people.

Let’s face it, the concept of a primary care trust didn’t. Few outside the NHS can explain the difference between primary and secondary care. If you don’t believe me, the next time you are on a bus or train, ask the person nearest you whether a brain surgeon works in primary or secondary care.

World-class commissioning, or emplying the bins?

The policy points of the day are both sadly familiar ones. Firstly, the Conservatives have availed themselves of the open goal of mixed-sex wards (see http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7814460.stm).

On mixed sex wards, BBC News report that the Tories' FOI requests found that of 132 responding hospitals, 15% still used at least one open-plan, mixed-sex ward, and others had curtains dividing the sexes (despite DH advice that solid full-height partitions should be used).

When we dead aWakefield (obscure Ibsen pun)

On the day when it was revealed that BMA Chair of Council Dr Hamish Meldrum has got into media embarrassment over his practice's involvement in a polyclinic (see www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/jan/08/hamish-meldrum-response), I got a special-looking letter.

Awesome! I've been asked personally by Health Minister Ben Bradshaw to give my views on local NHS services. Me and a few others, probably. Let's take this together, dear readers.

As a pint-downing weathergirl and a Tory topless model prepare to fight it out for the voting sub-section (i.e. the really dim bit) of the TV viewing public’s attention in Celebrity Big Brother, the possibility of a public vote improving anything other than a TV company’s profitability may seem remote.

Yet an interesting piece on the BBC News politics section today looked afresh at the legacy of John Major's 'cones hotline' (news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7772818.stm). It is a longer legacy than you might imagine.

It’s a slow start to the year policy-wise, which made the Liberal Democrats’ FOI of the figures from the National Patient Safety Agency the major point worthy of comment of the day.

The first thing to say is that the increase over the previous two years’ figures is almost certainly correctly being ascribed to increased reporting of incidents.

Hello, and welcome back to Health Policy Insight in 2009.

It would seem that the gift of prophecy has not yet deserted me (www.healthpolicyinsight.com/?q=node/234), and the sundry winter bugs did not make the NHS fall over in any meaningful way. That said, most workplaces only go back today and schools tomorrow, so be warned, chaps: this weekend could be quite lively.

Professor Alan Maynard OBE celebrates his ascension into the pantheon of the British Empire with a typically pro-Establishment disquisition on the need for NICE to get nastier in the recessionary climate for 2009.

The NHS faces a profound financial “squeeze” due to the global recession and the British Government’s attempts to mitigate the products of lax regulation of the financial sector.

At the same time as the funding capacity of the NHS is being challenged, there are two significant sources of increased demand for care: the elderly, and technological change.

The Health Policy Insight team will now be aiming to take a break until the New Year - although it very much depends how the flu crisis pans out.

In anticipation that the NHS will cope on the whole well (as on the whole it does), we would like to wish all our readers a very happy Christmas, and all good wishes for 2009.

Andy Cowper
EDITOR, HEALTH POLICY INSIGHT

The political syllogism was brilliantly defined by the classic BBC TV series Yes, Minister, and it reads as follows:

Something must be done.

This is something.

Therefore this must be done.

Reading Richard Branson's PR team's latest placing of a story on the front page of BBC News Online, the syllogism of his argument was startling.