Just when you thought this week couldn't get any sillier, Team Brexit have smashed all records for sheer bare-faced political lying.

I'm not making this up, unfortunately: Change Britain stalwarts Michael Gove, Steve Baker and Gisela Stuart have demanded that Theresa May spend a £200 million a week "Brexit bonus" on the NHS.

1. Social care got less than nothing
Not only were the sector-wide representations that social care needed more funding ignored (to the point where the Chancellor didn't even let councils raise the local precept), the hike to the national minimum wage next April (from £7.20 an hour to £7.50) will increase the labour costs of a sector that is seeing high levels of provider exit due to unprofitability.

Well. Wasn’t that a bracing few weeks?

Let’s start with the money, shall we? NHS Improvement’s Q2 financial report shows the NHS provider sector gamely struggling its way back towards financial balance.

Health economist Professor Alan Maynard would much rather not have to write this article again, but evidently it's still necessary. Sigh.

After six years of inadequate funding of the NHS, waiting lists are worsening. Workforce problems are acute, and 65 per cent of hospital trusts were in deficit at year end 2015-16.

It is remarkable that service provision has maintained such reasonable levels when health and social care funding has been so parsimonious.

The Imperial Phase in 10 Downing Street just keeps getting shorter.

Tony Blair's lasted just over a Parliament (though he won another general election after the Iraq war).

In the world of health policy, life imitates art: the first time as tragedy, the second time as Yes, Minister.

'The Bed Of Nails' is an iconic 'Yes, Minister' episode, in which civil servant Sir Humphrey Appleby observes that "the ship of state is the only one that leaks from the top".

HPI readers with elephantine memories will remember that there was a time before NHS England's boss was Sun King Simon Stevens.

It seems improbable, but it's true. In the BS Era (Before Stevens), the NHS Commissioning Board's previous Comrade-In-Chief Sir David Nicholson asked the sector to deliver their three-year plans. It was called 'A Call To Action'.

Health economist Professor Alan Maynard teaches Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt a little about efficiency.

What is efficiency?

On September 11th, I tweeted: "Health care that is delivered inefficiently is unethical as it deprives potential patients of care from which they could benefit".

On September 15th, a young chap called Jeremy Hunt tweeted in reply "This is why safe, high quality and efficient care must go hand in hand”.

Health Policy Insight: Do you agree that hospital A&Es are currently under real pressure?

Simon Stevens: Definitely. The NHS holds itself to a very high standard. No other major industrialised country in the world over the past year has managed to treat 9 out of 10 of its patients within four hours in an A&E department, but we have. The same with providing 9 out of 10 of our citizens with routine surgery within 18 weeks.

But that doesn't mean we can just carry on as we are.

The British Medical Association has gone nuclear in its plans for the next stage of protest against the new contract for 'junior' doctors.

It plans to hold four five-day all-out strikes of junior doctors, at short notice.

Finance directors may be breathing a sigh of relief at the wages to be unpaid, although lost tariff revenue may make the strikes unprofitable anyway.