"Let's work together in the national interest" was the final phrase in PM David Cameron's rallying cry to his party conference this afternoon.

Canned Heat's 'Let's Work Together' is clearly on his iPod.

He delivers a good speech, rolling the rhythms of his lists of Labour lassitudes up to a nice fast one-two, one-two pace and an indignant finish to cue audience laughter.

It wasn't a very good speech, if you focus on its content, but he delivered it well.

The health / NHS bits

I'll be tweeting from PM David Cameron's speech at www.twitter.com/HPIAndyCowper

Do pop in if you're free.

Dave West of Health Service Journal reports a DH presentation expressing significant concerns about "unresolved issues" relating to provider reform.

The slides included the question “How should [the national commissioning board] and Monitor manage risk of price competition driving down quality?” - the classic reason Simon Stevens always gave for the use of the national tariff outlawing competition on price.

Pulse and Channel 4 News haver collaborated on this story about cuts to nursing budgets in social care, outlining what they will mean vor very vulnerable people.

Read it.

It's not surprising.

It's depressing.

But it's not surprising.

Party conference = spending announcements. This is, after all, the sacred NHS.

The announcement of new money for healthcare always seems like a good thing. In the case of the £70 million for “reablement” after hospital treatment, we are told that the money is coming from from savings from central Department of Health budgets, and that PCTs will get the money from November.

Andrew Lansley's speech to the Conservative Party Conference.

Analysis and translation appear in bold italics.

...

"At each of the last six conferences, I addressed you as Shadow Health Secretary. What a pleasure it is to address you today as Health Secretary.

You think you're surprised? I can't believe it either!

It's always quote fascinating to see which former member of the previous government a new administration takes to its heart. Under New Labour, it was the authentically posh right-wing lothario and diarist Alan Clark.

Although there were many unattributable but warm words from the Tory front bench about Lord Adonis during the election campaign, it is former Home Office and Education minister Charles Clarke who seems to have made no small running at a Guardian fringe meeting yesterday in the Conservative Party Conference.

Will he be the Con-Dems' pet ex-New Labour minister?

Former nurse, Conservative MP and Health Select Committee member Nadine Dorries is without doubt a person who adds to the gaiety of the political classes.

The Royal College of Surgeons' response to the White Paper offers several amuse-gueules of food for thought.

Restoration-faced Chancellor George Osborne's speech to the Conservative Party conference this morning got possibly the shortest standing ovation I've ever seen from a major cabinet figure.

I've filleted the health-relevant stuff below. Channel 4 News economics correspondent Faisal Islam rightly tweeted that "Osborne pins maintaining the NHS budget on David Cameron".

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has issued a statement of "welcome" for the BMA's highly-critical response to his White Paper 'Equity And Excellence: Liberating The NHS'.

This clearly involves some novel definition of the word "welcome", of which I am not hitherto aware. Perhaps this is a 'liberated' welcome?