The Mascara Kid, also known as Labour’s shadow health secretary Andy Burnham, will give details of his party’s launching of its health policy review at the Kings Fund this morning.

He has an article in today’s Telegraph, and has also briefed details to Health Service Journal.

There has been considerable debate about nurse staffing levels, with the Telegraph story from the weekend drawing together CQC assessments that 17 acute trusts are dangerously under-staffed.

The imminent arrival of the Francis Report will return the issue to salience.

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We're not very far away from the arrival of the NHS Commissioning Board now.

The Health Select Committee's new report on the Care Quality Commission pulls fewer punches than an un-bribed boxer, stating that even though "the CQC has developed a much keener focus on patient safety and has a better appreciation of what it exists to do (not much of an achievement) ... we remain to be convinced that the CQC has successfully defined its core purpose.

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Reading through the Mid Staffs Public Inquiry's leading council Tom Kark's summing up, I was taken aback to discover the following text on page 168 (which is on page 42 - they are laid out four-up).

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So, after a weekend of speculation about what the Francis Public Inquiry Report will say (which brought us precisely no new information), today we got the Coalition Government's Mid-Term Review.

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Click here for details of 'Francis is coming. Look busy!', the new issue of subscription-based Health Policy Intelligence.

Happy new year to all Health Policy Insight readers: best wishes for 2013.

We return from our festive shenanigans to the latest phase in Project Francis Is Coming: Look Busy!, in the shape of the announcement that the Friends And Family Test is to have a PR push.

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Health economist Professor Alan Maynard explains why researchers ("the arrogant" *) and managers ("the ignorant" **) have to start to work together

The problem: ignorant managers and arrogant researchers
NHS managers offer us New Year messages advocating hospital closures to fund “care in the home”. Some of them vigorous advocate “telehealth” and “telecare”.

The following is an extract from our subscription service Health Policy Intelligence, which funds the existence of this site, and costs £69 a year. Email andycowper@hotmail.com for details, or tweet @HPIAndyCowper

Health Policy Intelligence Issue 52 – 21 December 2012

Francis is coming. Look busy!
Welcome to the latest edition of Health Policy Intelligence, the analysis and summary of the key events in policy by Health Policy Insight editor Andy Cowper
editorial@healthpolicyinsight.com / www.Twitter.com/HPIAndyCowper

I may be a world-class curmudgeon, but I do take requests - especially when they come from my friend Alastair McLellan, editor of the indispensable Health Service Journal.

With that in mind, here are a few thoughts about top pollsters Ipsos MORI's 2012 Almanac.

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