The sun, bunting, health

I had to do 2 speeches yesterday so as a reward I decided I'd get home early and sit in the garden in the sun. Shocking admission I know. But not entirely work free. I get a call from Eric Pickles MP for a chat. He gave me a very good tip for my appearance on Any Questions! I'm not repeating it here or everyone will do it. He also mentioned that Mrs Pickles had heard me asking my question from the audience at a previous AQ and was impressed! Or so he said!



He asked me if I had put the bunting out for the Jubilee and indeed that is exactly what I was about to do. I have an old aussie friend and his family coming over to stay so I feel its my duty to be patriotic. The Pound shop in Brixton has a nice range of bunting,flags and even a union jack table cloth! So the front of the house is now appropriately decorated. Thoroughly naff in a very English way!



I'm now blogging from an interesting seminar on personal budgets at the Nuffield Foundation where i was speaking on the conclusions of my report on choice and competition. We argued that a deadline be set for the introduction of personal budgets. The DH are currently running a number of pilots and will report on conclusions in October. There will be huge organisational resistance to this but it's essential to a differ met culture in health that puts citizens more in control of their health management , especially for long term conditions.



A report from the NAO today on how the NHS is mismanaging care for diabetes was prescient. 24,000 people dying because the NHS has not provided effective care. A great area for personal budgets? I spoke to a gathering of the GP leads from the new clinical commissioning groups yesterday and flew the flag for the sector. I think the new commissioning arrangements could work well for new providers and for different approaches. But that will require lateral thinking and risk appetite ; not something that our dear DH is entirely at home with. But as I urged them; tell them to bugger off if they try to stifle innovation by all their wretched form filling and process !