Editorial Thursday 24 November 2016: Five thoughts about yesterday
1. Social care got less than nothing
Not only were the sector-wide representations that social care needed more funding ignored (to the point where the Chancellor didn't even let councils raise the local precept), the hike to the national minimum wage next April (from £7.20 an hour to £7.50) will increase the labour costs of a sector that is seeing high levels of provider exit due to unprofitability.
More overhead, same funding. You do the maths.
2. The cost of private medical insurance rose
Yes, I can hear you playing the world's smallest violin that the rise in insurance premium tax from 10% to 12% applies to private medical insurance too. At the margins, this will make PMI unaffordable for some older people on fixed incomes who have it now.
The NHS will pick up the cost of that.
3. 'Ten Billion Tourettes' remains rampant
In the Commons, the generally sensible-seeming Chancellor Philip Hammond repeatedly used the £10 billion extra for the NHS lie.
This Doctor Who economics is catching on fast. Time travel and fantasy - a sure-fire hit.
Mr Hammond also claimed that the NHS got the finding it sought. Yesterday's HPI pointed out that this is about half-way down our recent interview, also bears re-reading.
4. Jeremy Corbyn knighted Simon Stevens at PMQs
As if yesterday, and health policy in general, weren't weird enough already. Eight minutes 37.
5. STPs - and clinicians - should act boldly on crap services
Not every closure ahead is going to be a bad thing for patients, as this excellent journalism by Jennifer Williams of the Manchester Evening News reveals.
It is utterly depressing that Pennine Acute NHS Trust sought to cover up this report. They should be investigated, and those responsible should lose their jobs: no pay-off or compromise agreement.
More to the point, all clinicians have a duty to report this level of service failure and safety risk. If the trust tries to cover it up, use the media.
The NHS has worrying patches of this rotten culture of concealment. We have a long way to go to a safety culture.