Good morning. I hope the weather is good where you are.

Today we turn to an interesting press release from Dr Foster Intelligence, whose public sector share sale by the IC to the Health Secretary for £8 million we exclusively revealed last week.

Dr Foster Intelligence have moved into consulting mode. Now Tribal, KPMG, McKinseys, E&Y, Old Uncle Tom Cobblers and all can take heart: the consulting in question is about the methodology to be used in the next edition of the Dr Foster Hospitals Guide.

This article doesn't need any contextualising. Just read it (as Nike so very nearly said).

If I'm ever sick enough to need to be admitted to hospital, I'm not going to give a shit whether the ward is mixed sex or not.

How about you?

Today's Telegraph offers three health policy-inflecting stories.

The first is the return of the Quiff Of Doom, ex-Health Secretary and ex-MP Alan Milburn.

Again.

Who indeed, sort of never went away.

If Eric Pickles accuses you of having lost your way, as he has apparently said of the soon-for-abolition Audit Committee, you're almost certainly doing the right things.

Like measuring added value, knowing what works and what doesn't and why. Providing independent commentary that almost everybody accepts to be honest and useful. Not perfect - since information never is - but honest and useful.

No. I mean, why would government want an Audit Commission anyway?

Friday. Good. Time for a round-up of some Things That Are Not Surprising.

Health Service Journal has compiled the available PCT world-class commissioning assurance scores into league tables (commendably, using two different methodologies for weighting scores).

And guess what? PCTs became better at passing the world-class commissioning tests. Wow! World-class decommissioning, however, seems to remain another matter altogether

The seminal parliamentary journalist Andrew Roth died this morning, at the age of 91.

Born in New York, he was a journalist and foreign correspondent around the world for 20 years. Moving to this country in 1950, Roth was political correspondent for the Manchester Evening News from 1972-1984, contributed to the New Statesman from 1984-1997, and has been an obituarist and contributor to The Guardian since 1996.

Editor's note - Monitor haven't put this online yet, so I am doing so very quickly. No time to make the tables readable, but there is some interesting text here. National 18 week waiting time target cancelled - except where specified in the contracts sticks out.

Review of NHS foundation trust annual plans 2010/11

Overview

The General Medical Council (GMC) has cleared sacked diabetes consultant Dr Shirine Boardman of any wrong-doing – two years after South Warwickshire Hospital NHS Trust sacked her in July 2008.

Dr Boardman did not transfer medical records to any external organisation, as South Warwickshire Hospital Trust claimed. There was no breach of patient confidentiality, no involvement whatsoever of any “company”, and Dr Boardman did not break any NHS rules.

This feature in The Independent's business section pronounces that "the other British success story in recent months is the pharmaceutical chemicals sectors, again largely linked to US trade. This sector contributed a respectable £221m extra, and the gain appears to be based on making pills and potions for US and Chinese customers from raw materials and semi-finished items sourced from China".