'The NHS must evolve - or face a painful death' is the title of perhaps the worst commentary I've recently seen by a supposedly serious commentator on the NHS. It is by Ian Birrell, a journalist and former speechwriter for David Cameron.

I said on my first day in this new job that five years in to the longest period of austerity the Health Service has ever seen, the stakes for the NHS have never been higher.

So far our main response to NHS budget pressures has been an enormous and successful collective effort to keep the show on the road, doing what we’ve mostly always done, but considerably more efficiently.

That’s been vital in sustaining the results that matter for our patients. So we owe a huge debt of gratitude to the staff of the NHS for what has been achieved, under often difficult circumstances.

Below are my semi-finished notes from the NHS Clinical Commissioners conference appearances by Simon Stevens and Jeremy Hunt. Drawn from my tweets, so a bit rough in places, but hopefully of interest.

Simon Stevens live at NHS Clinical Commissioners Annual Conference
NHS England’s new chief executive was introduced by NHSCC president Charles Alessi, who told delegates “Simon Stevens has come home”. (Like football in 1996?)

Interesting to read in The Observer that moves are afoot by Conservative ministers to bring Frank Field's plan for an NI hike hypothecated for the NHS into the health policy red zone.

The main identified source for the piece is Frank Field.

I bought, read and enjoyed the book 'Freakonomics' by Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner. Pithily-written, fun and with some interesting analysis, it made a good read. I didn't get its successor 'Super-Freakonomics', because I suspected that its trailed thesis on using a stratoshield to solve global warming was nonsense.

Commentary to follow: for the time being, here is the copy of Ed Miliband's speech today setting out the latest glimpse of Labour's health policy.

Ed Miliband MP, Leader of the Labour Party: A few weeks ago, I did something unusual for a politician.

I spent two nights with the staff and patients of an NHS hospital in Watford, a few miles outside London.

Sitting in on the clinics.

Spending time on the wards.

Going out with the paramedics.

Talking to the staff and to the patients.

Not a visit where you swoop in and out.

My Lords, Ladies and gentlemen, NHS comrades (and regulators),

I have received some comments about the relative infrequency of Health Policy Insight posts of late. Thank you for your concern. I am fine, and indeed still hold opinions and do analysis about the NHS. It's just a question of time available.

Gosh my old boots.

Outgoing (as in leaving) RCP supremo Sir Richard Thompson has given The Guardian an exit interview in which he says the quality of some NHS clinical care is a bit shit because clinicians are too busy.

Well, thank Christ he didn't notice it during the entire period he was in post as the president of the representative body.

Who knows what might have happened?

In 'Stuck Outside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again', Bob Dylan wrote "And here I sit so patiently, waiting to find what price/You have to pay to get out of going through all these things twice". It's a good line.

However, Dylan also later wrote "Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle like a bowl of soup", which cancelled the former line out, and proves that you can't trust Bob Dylan as a seer.

It’s good to be back - back in the NHS, and back here on Tyneside.

I know times are tough, and the Health Service is under pressure. But when people ask me why take on this new job? My answer is: Because I believe in the NHS, and I believe in its future. That it will be there when we need it, at the most profound moments in our lives. At the birth of our children. At the deaths of our loved ones. And at every stage in between – as we grapple with hope, fear, generosity, loneliness, compassion – all the most profound elements of the human spirit.