Tom Smith introduces a new daily analysis of health policy debate that will appear exclusively on Health Policy Insight at teatime each day.

While press summaries give readers a clue about the surface of debate our new summary aims to scratch beneath the surface and make sense of what is being discussed. It aims to set the reports in context and compare commentary across the British print and broadcast media. Each day the press is full of discussion about health policy, partly reflecting the current highly charged political atmosphere, but also a fair amount of uncertainty about the aims of policy, how different elements link together or don’t, and more crucially how policy should be taken forward and by whom.

Why do SHAs appear to average a 15% surplus on turnover, while 25% of community matron posts remain unfilled?

by Andy Cowper, editor, Health Policy Insight

Money is interesting stuff, and eloquent with it. In a great lyric by Chief Medical Officer Liam Donaldson’s hero Bob Dylan, “money doesn’t talk, it swears”. So what four-letter word would sum up a surplus of £1.658 billion – just over 2% of the NHS budget?

Preview: ‘About time: commissioning to transform day and vocational services’

by Helen Lockett, Linda Seymour and Adam Pozner, Sainsburys Centre for Mental Health

except it’s not franchising and we don’t know what they mean by ‘failing’. Unsuccessful 2001 policy re-announced in motivational boost for NHS managers.

by Andy Cowper, editor, Health Policy Insight

The Department of Health has launched a new outline document ‘Developing The NHS Performance Regime’, to address consistently poor-performing NHS trusts.

Author of the inverse care law, BMA chair and leading researcher discussing inequalities, polyclinics, QOF, out-of-hours, quality and continuity of care

Uncorrected (rough) transcript by Andy Cowper, editor of Health Policy Insight

Dr Julian Tudor Hart, Hon. Clinical Research Fellow, University of Wales Swansea Medical School
Dr Hamish Meldrum, Chair of Council, BMA
Professor Martin Roland, Director, National Primary Care Research and Development Centre

Is the ‘anticipatory care’ model reproducible?