Did I hear that right? In response to an audience question, Health Secretary Andrew Lansley CBE MP told the NHS Confederation conference that the independent commissioning board would negotiate all contracts for primary care?

So that's every GP practice, every pharmacy, every community midwifery service, every dentistry contract?

About 8,000 contracts?

So there is effectively no job left for PCTs. And the independent commissioning board is going to have to be very big. Which involves management cost, at a time of attempting to take 1/3 off the 2008-9 management budget.

The late great Ian Dury had it right.