Here's the David Flory letter

NHS Deputy Chief Executive
Richmond House
79 Whitehall
London
SW1A 2NS

18 February 2011

Gateway ref: 15607

Dear Colleague

Publication of the final 2011-12 Payment by Results tariff package

I am writing to notify you that the final tariff for use from 1 April 2011 is published today on the Department of Health website.

They are definitely tempting me to swear.

The DH have issued a statement denying the the price competition U-turn is a U-turn.

"There have been reports in the media that the Department of Health has changed its direction on the issue of price competition, based on David Nicholson's letter published yesterday, in which he highlighted that 'there will be no question of introducing price competition'.

No. The DH normally issues clarification annexes when policy has not changed.

That's right.

This 'heir to Blair' stuff by the Tories is getting out of hand: SOS Lansley has appointed former Tony Blair adviser Dr David Bennett, Monitor's acting chief executive as the successor chair to ex-Audit Commission maestro Steve Bundred.

Perhaps the Conservatives should re-brand themselves as 'Continuity New Labour'?

Bennett is ex-McKinseys, and ex-chair of now-in-abeyance The 10 Partnership, who did oodles of consultancy for the last Government. During that period, Bennett advised the Monitor board on strategy.

Here is the text of NHS Supreme Soviet Comrade Sir David Nicholson's latest letter to the NHS on managing the transition

From the Office of Sir David Nicholson KCB CBE
Chief Executive of the NHS in England

To:
All Chief Executives in NHS Trusts in England
All Chief Executives in NHS Foundation Trusts in England
All Chief Executives in Primary Care Trusts in England
All Chief Executives in Strategic Health Authorities in England

Cc:
Commissioning consortia pathfinders

Annex B: Frequently Asked Questions on the Health and Social Care Bill

Services subject to tariff will continue to compete on quality: there is no question of introducing price competition.

Competition is back as one of the health policy buzz-words. Its early 2000s iteration was under the slightly veiled guise of "contestability": Simon Stevens was an advocate that health services which are both highly measuarable and highly constestable were appropriate realms for the introduction of market mechnisms such as choice and plurality of providers.

A Treasury press release announces the news that the a pilot project is to review the Queen's Hospital Romford PFI as a representative example of the genre, to see what generic learning can be rolled out across the NHS.

This comes in the light of the Public Accounts Committee's highly critical recent report on PFI.

From Hansard.

The Guardian's Nicholas Watt has written a piece about the likelihood of Populus pollmeister Andrew Cooper becoming the new head of strategy for 10 Downing Street.

Watt's article gives, in passing, an interesting taster of PM David Cameron's political journey.

Experience is a wonderful thing: it enables you to recognise the same mistake when you're just about to make it again.

Unfortunately, the NHS seems to have pockets of fundamental amnesia when it comes to care of the elderly, as the new report from the Parliamentary and NHS Ombudsman reveals (the Ombudsman, Ann Abrahams, will give evidence to the Health select Committee at 10.30 today).