yes - in a health context examples include interdepartmental wrangling over medicines pricing and commissioning Casey to spend three years reviewing social care

Britain’s ‘open’ voters need a champion Despite their triumph in Gorton, it’s not clear the Greens have what it takes to prevent a Reform victory at the next election

This week's column: the Green surge is in part because Labour consciously decided they didn't want the votes they got in 2024:

Why AI exposes our digital shortcomings - Heywood Quarterly Anthony Finkelstein argues that the UK needs stronger tech foundations to reap the benefits of artificial intelligence.

This is a refreshing read in @heywoodquarterly.bsky.social which combines optimism about AI in public services with sober analysis of the constraints (tech debt, fragmented investment, tactical fixes, outsourcing) that can hold public sector orgs back

heywoodquarterly.com/why-ai-expos...

really interesting - appreciate lack of data, but would your hypothesis be that this suggests higher £costs per strike day (ie if reduced activity impact is driven by more consultant cover)?

The PM leads a government with a 150+ seat majority. If so frustrated at overly burdensome consultations - why accept amendments to your flagship planning legislation which compels Natural England to conduct more consultations?

Good piece.

It is too easy a cop-out for the PM to rail against "consultations and regulations and arm's lengths bodies". The obvious follow-up is: why does your government continue to legislate for more consultations and regulations and ALBs?

Genuinely what are people like Ed West doing with their lives? Go to Wigmore Hall, go to the movies, go to Koko, go to the Vortex Jazz Club, go see an orchestra, go see the Last Dinner Party...it ought to cure you out of having this weird, unnatural reaction to your fellow citizens.

Forced myself to listen to his TRIP interview and couldn’t get this post out of my head

I haven't seen convincing evidence that the increase in long ED waits is due to changes to condition acuity / comorbidity.

This is a problem we'd effectively solved in 2005; and has deteriorated substantially in the last 5 years. So I don't think demand-side args have enough explanatory force

there are various internal and external bottlenecks - see sections 4 and 5 of this Re:State report for a good summary: re-state.co.uk/wp-content/u...

(while we do see shifts in demography and comorbidities - I don't think sufficiently different from 2005, when we proved we could solve this problem)

Media reporting (and parts of the RCN report) seem to conflate "increased demand for urgent care" with "increased pressures on hospitals".

In doing so - they're obscuring the drivers of the problem and leading readers towards ineffective solutions (i.e. more staff, more funding).

But it draws the wrong conclusions on workforce: worsening A&E performance has happened despite 30%+ increases in the number of nurses working in hospitals since 2019.

RCN implies these increases are insufficient due to "increased demand".

But, as we've seen, this is just incorrect!

The full RCN report is mixed. It's reasonable to highlight high bed occupancy rates as a driver of A&E problems.

If there's nowhere to admit patients to, they're either stuck waiting for hours, receive (unsafe) corridor care, or are forced to leave before receiving treatment.

The data *in the report cited* is enough to disprove the hypothesis that poor performance is driven by increased demand. (See +3% attendances vs +8,033% in 12 hr waits)

The real cause of long waits in A&E is poor patient flow, driven by operational dysfunction in other parts of hospitals.

The poor outcomes in A&E are obvious to anyone who looks at the numbers or has simply been to an ED in the last few years.

But as @policyskeptic.bsky.social has repeatedly argued, incorrect diagnoses of the *drivers* of poor outcomes are obstacles to solutions which will improve performance.

Numbers leaving A&E without treatment triples in six years Soaring demand has led to ‘shocking’ rise in untreated patients leaving NHS emergency departments in England, data shows

Misleading write-up - it's true that there is a crisis in A&E, but this is not because of "soaring demand".

The RCN report itself shows that A&E attendances are only 3% higher than in 2019, while 12+ hour waits are 8,033% higher.

www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

Fifteen thoughts on the Budget A quick verdict on Reeves Round II, plus an utterly wild OBR leak

h/t to @archiehall.bsky.social substack for flagging the Economist's monthly tracker -

notes.archie-hall.com/p/fifteen-th...

www.economist.com/interactive/...

Last month, there were *54,314* waits longer than 12 hours.

In October 2018, this figure was 214.

Economist charts showing indicators of govt performance across health, immigration, housing, crime, incomes, energy, transport, and environment

Missed this at the time - Economist/@moreincommonuk.bsky.social polling on voters' top priority across policy areas.

For health, it's A&E waiting times.

Govt have put a lot of eggs in the elective recovery basket, but can't neglect A&E performance (which remains v poor).

While the slice of the govt pie spent on welfare remains roughly the same - the size of the pie is not growing.

We need to reframe this issue as purely 'distributional' and focus on reforms to get people healthier and incentivise work - both a socially progressive and growth-oriented approach

- if we matched leading OECD employment rates, we'd have 2m more people in work

- this economic inactivity due to ill-health now costs £212bn a year - equiv. to 7% of GDP or 70% of *all tax revenue*

None of this is captured by measuring welfare spend as a % of GDP

The govt's Mayfield Review pulled out some striking stats -

- over 20% of UK working-age adults are out of work and not looking (higher than similar countries like Netherlands)

- since 2019, 800k more people have left work due to ill health, with a further 600k projected by 2030

Helpful chart - as @chrisgiles.ft.com wrote last month, a corrective to some moral panic narratives around welfare costs.

But focusing on welfare as % of GDP risks obscuring the rise in people out of work through illness (comparatively high in UK) which has big economic and social consequences

New Labour cut waiting lists to record lows, in part by leveraging priv sector - but they could do this by investing £££ that the current govt doesn't have

GM ICB board paper excerpt with highlighted section reading: "There also continues to be overperformance of Independent Sector elective plans requiring activity management processes to bring back in line."

Latest Greater Manc ICB board papers underline the bind NHS systems are in.

"Overperformance of independent sector elective plans" is cited as a driver of financial deficit.

Makes sense for GM to utilise priv sector capacity to meet govt's stated priority - but so tough given fiscal constraints

Tell me more about the “industrial region” of Greater Manchester in 2025, the fastest growing part of the uk economy

Also bravo Baroness Sue Campbell who transformed our Olympic team and then transformed our women's football team. Extraordinary record.

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