Westminster Village humour
Q: What's the difference between Chris Huhne and Andrew Lansley?
A: Chris Huhne can get his points across.

The health select committee's report on The Nicholson Challenge (aka NHS public expenditure) is now available. It is an accurate portrayal of what seems (according to various contacts across the NHS) to be happening.

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It's been an interesting few days for the Health And Social Care Bill's tortuous progress through Parliament.

A leaked draft of the Commons Health Select Committee's forthcoming report on NHS expenditure found its way to Toby Helm and Denis Campbell of The Observer.

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The Guardian splashes this morning on the proposals by Monitor to allow credit ratings agencies to assess the financial viability of hospital providers in the private and NHS sectors, encapsulaed in the Developing the Continuity of Services licence conditions: stakeholder engagement document.

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Fans of being underwhelmed who have some spare time should watch the recording of yesterday's evidence session to the Health Select Committee, which featured a star turn from Minister Who? himself, Paul Burstow.

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A friend of my wife's and mine is in intensive care in a London hospital, at the sharp end of healthcare.

You'd like Jayne if you met her. She is bright, courageous, warm-hearted, funny and sharp-witted: full of life. Altogether, she's a hard person to imagine being seriously ill. But that is what she is.

A machine is breathing for her.

Health Policy Insight, 3 January 2012

Health economist Professor Alan Maynard has spent much of his career highlighting the differences in clinical practice. In his first Health Policy Insight column of 2012, Professor Maynard examines the history of the subject and asks whether the reduction of variation is in fact a mirage – and if so, then is ‘The Nicholson Challenge’ of £4 billion annual productivity savings actually a euphemism for cuts? He concludes that if QIPP is no mirage, then hospitals must cut beds and dismiss staff.

So. If we were going to have a debate about priorities in the healthcare landscape, it might be a timely thing, no?

And it might be useful to have a range of experts?

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Click here for details of 'Be jolly, bottom-up”, Comrade Sir David tells NHS - 'tis the season to, apparently', the new issue of subscription-based Health Policy Intelligence.

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Would you like to know what God's Christmas message to Andrew Lansley is?

Why Mr Lansley (saviour, liberator) is not Craig David?

Where the NHS is rising in the polls - not in a good way?

What crystal clarity Comrade Sir David Nicholson has given on the ultimate accountability for primary care performance - CCG or NHSCB?

Health Policy Intellgence subscribers know all this, and more.

Health Policy Intelligence is our weekly subscription-based analysis service.

Goodwill to all men? Ahem. Not from private provider BMI to insurer BUPA, as the following letter sent yesterday from BMI's chief executive Stephen Collier to their consultant suppliers reveals.

Cah. Purchaser-provider splits, eh?

Still, cracking opportunity for the NHS to get in there ... private patient income caps permitting.

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A good friend of Health Policy Insight sent through this text of an advert for CCG leaders.

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Click here for details of 'Be jolly, bottom-up”, Comrade Sir David tells NHS - 'tis the season to, apparently', the new issue of subscription-based Health Policy Intelligence.

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Lead your CCG!