The DH arms' length body review is here.

The press release says that it recommends that "the changes outlined in today’s report will reduce the number of health ALBs from eighteen to between eight and ten; they are expected to deliver savings of over £180m by 2014/15".

Super. It's almost enough money to pay for the National Cancer Drugs Fund.

is online here.

Two questions stick out, both from the wonderfully-named 'ROFL Copter':

How will GP commissioners be accountable to patients?

AL: "Patients should have more choice, should have more information they should be able to choose which GP practice they are registered with and everybody providing healthcare should increasingly expect to see their results be part of how they are held to account."

I miss things; I really do. (Regular readers are probably aware of this).

This BBC News report on the complexities of the reimbursement for risk-sharing on expensive innovative medicines still took me aback.

How on earth did it seem like a good idea for anyone to leave the reimbursement application process to 152 different commissioning bodies, not to mention hundreds of acute providers?

The Sunday Telegraph's Laura Donnelly knows a non-story from a story - ex-HSJ editor, you know the form.

So it is time to take quite seriously her report on NHS service reductions or removals in progress.

She reports - and will have checked, carefully - that surgery is being restricted, with Hertfordshire PCT rationing hip and knee replacement replacement service, cateract surgery and orthodontics absolutely without the granting of its prior permission on a case-by-case basis.

... but David Forster, policy and strategy director of Yorkshire Ambulance Service, appears to be going for the big time.

The Yorkshire Post reports that Forster told a Facebook discussion, "the NHS has no shame in employing too many who are lazy, unproductive, obstinate, militant, aggressive at every turn and who couldn't secure a job anywhere outside the bloated public sector where mediocrity is too often shielded by weak and unprincipled HR policies".

This BBC News story about the Society and College of Radiographers' recommendation that parents-to-be should not film phonograph scans of their unborn children struck me as stunningly ill-judged.

The defensive tone of the attitude to sonographers who miss defects was a classic 'tell' of defensive medicine. Scanning technology now produced excellent images. Hospitals hit us up for stills at a premium, and we are glad to buy them.

Hiatus today. Back tomorrow.

Have a good weekend.

Advice On The Reconfiguration Of The Upper Gastro-Intestinal Cancer Surgical Service In The South West Peninsula has now been published by the Independent Reconfiguration Panel.

Firstly and rightly, it supports the reconfiguration of services to improve clinical quality and safety for patients. That is unmitigatedly to be welcomed.

It says,

Good morning.

This comes from a train on my way to Reform's health half-day conference (and what a good length for a conference that is).

'Delivering A New Health Agenda' promises us Sophia Christie,
Cynthia Bower, Health Minister Simon Burns, Nico Hencke, Roger Taylor, Stephen Dorrell, Steve Bundred and Alan Maynard of this parish. I'll keep you updated.

Blimey. Nurse tops both own parents.

Beat that, Harold Shipman! 1-0 to the nursing profession.

As usual, the Kissinger-ridiculing genius who is Tom Lehrer has just the tune for this story.