Happy Valentine's Day to romantics and cynics alike (the latter group generally being the former group plus plenty of beers, tears and years).

I think that the very smart Richard Blogger was first to pick up on the Health and Social Care Bill Impact Assessment's stating that private sector acute providers would notionally need to be paid 14% above tariff to create a 'level playing field'.

Health Service Journal breaks the news that the worst-kept secret in the NHS has come to pass: the Foundation Trust Network is to take its independence of the NHS Confederation.

The reverse-Oedipal conflict between the FTN's Sue Slipman and the Confed's Nigel Edwards is over: Sue has won.

Or has she? I wouldn't be at all sure.

Your can find the Health And Social Care Bill committee transcripts of yesterday's morning and afternoon sessions through these links.

These sessions are very interesting.

United Health Group CEO Simon Stevens was one of the key influencers of the NHS reforms of the past decade.

His formidable intelligence and strong communication skills made him an iconic figure in health policy over the period 2000-10, despite his leaving for the USA mid-way through the decade.

Perhaps a significant part of this was his long-standing interest in the commissioning function. The NHS's problem at the start of the decade was one of under-capacity in provision. As such, the National Hospital Service devoured the majority of the available attention and resource.

Online opinion polls are often, let's be frank, pretty bogus. Tiny samples and deliberately contentious issues.

One has just been published by the British Medical Journal, however, which is a bit harder to dismiss than many in the healthcare publishing marketplace.

It finds that almost three quarters (72%) of BMJ readers think healthcare in England in five years’ time will be worse or much worse compared with now.

Goodness me. SOS Lansley is defending his reforms in The Guardian.

So, what does he have to say?

"There is mounting support within the NHS towards the government's plans to modernise the service. The NHS is full of highly skilled, dedicated people. Parts of it provide world-leading levels of care. But too often, the system itself can act as a barrier to the kind of progress that doctors and nurses want for patients.

Assertions: 4. Facts: 0.

Health Policy Insight is not produced by people who are clinically expert, to put it mildly.

However, when a reader got in touch to ask for our help in their management of their own hypertension while avoiding drug use, we were naturally glad to help.

The cause of this reader's raised blood pressure was SOS Lansley's recent statement in the second reading of the Health and Social Care Bill in the Commons.

David Nicholson - Uncorrected rough transcript, Health & Social Care Bill committee (whose online feed is here).

This is a very rough transcript indeed. But topical.

DN: Commissioning Board decide shape of tariff – so give org £10K to look after total healthcare of individual with diabetes, or that decide based on no of people treated. Economic regulator set price as in actual number, to ensure have vibrant provider side. Legislation has clever way of locking us together to get joint agreement on price.

I'm indebted to my friend Dr Phil Hammond, and to a correspondent of Phil's, for pointing out that in contravention of its own rules, the Department of Health has made several significant revisions to its PCT clustering guidance without amending the guidance's 'information page'.

Updated drafts of guidance should always carry an acknowledgment to that effect on the information page.

The health questions from this week's Prime Minister's Questions (slight delay, busy week).

Bob Russell: A characteristic of the British way of life is its charities and voluntary organisations. Does the Prime Minister share my concern that some local authorities and health trusts are using the perceived cuts as an excuse to make cuts, thus undermining voluntary organisations and charities with the big society concept?