So what's new today? Apart from the downfall of free market capitalism and the end of the world as we know it? And no, I don't feel fine, I've got a slight ache in my wrist.

Well, I thought it would be good to find out a bit about the background of Patrick Carter - Lord Carter of Coles, the inaugural chair of the new NHS Co-operation and Competition Panel. So I did, and you can read it here.

It's a bit of an important job, that one, with an immense amount of potential power to influence the direction and velocity of commissioning. Basically, they are going to be making case law up about competition as they go along. It will be interesting to see the degree of transparency of their processes.

And on the subject of competition, the polyclinic row is back, and would you believe it? It's all kicking off in London.

Speaking of the global economic banking crisis meltdown shock thing, do you think the FESC companies might be recruiting for numbers people?

If not, I guess there are probably some vacancies for clinical coders ...