Editorial Wednesday 30 May 2012: Health Policy Intelligence 46 - Comrade Sir David's Great Leap Forward

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And lo, it came to pass that Nigel Edwards’ Law Of No Previously-Used Number was fulfilled regarding the NHS reorganisation, with the NHS Commissioning Board Authority’s announcement that it is going to assess 212 CCGs over the coming four waves.

The NCB is even letting CCGs know about their running costs allowance, in lesser and greater detail, which is sporting of them.

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Mind you, three of the 26 commissioning support services fell at the first hurdle (one of which was the fundamentally silly national communications service). Indeed, there are still two more checkpoints for CSS to successfully navigate. If more of the remaining 23 CSS don’t have the right papers, and CCGs see a comparable rate of attrition, could we possibly get something like ten organisations to support commissioning and – oh. let’s just pluck a figure out of the air – around 150 local statutory bodies to do the commissioning?

It’s early days, but the NCB is already looking brilliant: it has today published a business plan which is already two months out of date. You have to admire a system manager running the NHS which can issue a plan, the timespan of one-third of which is in the past, with a straight face. Perhaps this is the new NHS culture they keep banging on about: clinical leadership by time-traveller Doctor Who.

Let us hope that Chairman Mal and Comrade Sir David don’t fall out over which of them gets to be Tom Baker, and which has to settle for being Colin Baker.

The NHS Commissioning Board Authority is also set to welcome Tim Kelsey back into NHS politics as its national director for patients and information. This is an interesting choice ...

This is the end of the short extract from the latest edition of our subscription-based Health Policy Intelligence. To subscribe for £69 for 12 months, email editorial@healthpolicyinsight.com.