Which gets us to the crux. It's plausible that these inequalities of power have contributed to (pdf) economic stagnation. Bankers' power to extract implicit subsidies and to avoid tight regulation contributed to the financial crisis. Billionaires' control of the media tipped the balance towards Brexit, and prevents intelligent and meaningful analysis of policy not least by keeping some issues off the agenda and others on it. The mega-rich invest resources that could be spent on new technologies instead in efforts to preserve their wealth, for example by entrenching (pdf). hierarchies or by lobbying for favourable regulation and copyright laws that stifle competition. Weak trades unions and strong management power have encouraged increased exploitation rather than investments in labour-saving technologies. And big corporate hierarchies encourage office politicking; cultivating skills which management can easily assess rather than more useful ones; and incentivize short-termism (pdf) at the expense of healthy corporate cultures.

Excellent piece on how inequality manifests itself in ways that aren’t measured by official statistics. Economics does itself a profound disservice when it neglects imbalances in power.

Predictably inconsistent Daily Mail editorial line
(via Private Eye)

Grok is a bit sh1t.

Rule 2: if your results are surprising and they make you feel good, be doubly cautious.

Rule 1 for analytical quality assurance: if your results are surprising, they're probably wrong.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Another day, another stupid Excel chart.

We know about the three planned NHS shifts. But there appears to be an unintended fourth one: mental health to physical health - seemingly
caused by the second shift, analogue to digital.

What a confusing sentence!

“I can’t guarantee that I’ve never been on a march where someone hasn’t said something I disagree with”

As also shown by the government's own figures...

bsky.app/profile/char...

✨✨✨New blog

What would it take for the government to fulfil its promise to halve the gap in healthy life expectancy across the country?

TLDR: improving health care won’t be enough on its own, govt urgently needs to reduce deprivation.

Full analysis here ⬇️⬇️

www.health.org.uk/features-and...

A puzzling BBC headline yesterday, following publication of the ONS inflation estimates.

Bread and cereals together account for only 1.8% of the CPI basket. Their price dropped by 2% between Dec and Jan, but the contribution to the fall in inflation is surely minimal?

Great analysis. It was also clear from the beginning it wouldn't work. Guy's and St Thomas's was the model for all this, but after starting the programme the trust's wait times fell slower than the national average and the theatre staff went on strike...

Excellent thread as the Health Foundation adds further evidence the government are not being entirely transparent with claims of reduced waiting lists

Fixing the NHS requires an honest appraisal of the challenges so we can allocate resources appropriately.

The gov really needs to do better

This is really fascinating. Reads like a detective story, offers striking insights into the numbers on waiting lists.

Thanks to @jamesillman.bsky.social at @hsj.co.uk for covering our analysis (£)
www.hsj.co.uk/quality-and-...

Our full analysis is here:
www.health.org.uk/features-and...

NHSE’s evaluation of the programme didn’t address this question. It focused on the programme's impact (good for press releases) but not the equally important question of how the impact was achieved (useful for learning/wider spread).

All of this raises the question of how the programme worked. On the face of it (comparing FF20 to other trusts), not by increasing throughput as intended but, instead, by increasing the removal of untreated patients from the waiting list, and reducing (unnecessary?) referrals.

Completed pathways grew by 0.3% in the FF20 trusts, compared to 3.7% elsewhere (12 times slower.)

Total removals from the waiting list did grow slightly faster because “unreported removals” (cases that shouldn’t be on the waiting list being taken off) grew much more quickly.

So far, so good. But how the programme worked is not at all clear. It aimed to reduce waiting lists by speeding up hospital processes so surgeons could do more. If this happened we’d expect to see completed pathways (people treated from the waiting list) growing more quickly. But we don’t…

The difference is unlikely to have arisen by chance: there’s a 1 in 20 chance that a random selection of trusts would give the same results or better. We can’t, however, tell to how much of the difference is down to the characteristics of the 20 areas, and how much down to the FF20 programme.

We found that in the year from Oct 24 to Oct 25 waiting lists in the FF20 (crack team) trusts fell by 5.7% compared to a fall of 1.3% elsewhere. This supports the headline claim.

Waiting lists cut 3 times faster in highest joblessness areas Waiting lists in 20 areas in England fall 3 times faster than the national average thanks to experts deployed by government to help supercharge NHS care.

On 14 January Wes Streeting said that waiting lists had fallen three times faster in 20 areas of the country where crack teams had been deployed. We’ve looked at this claim and have questions. 🧵
www.gov.uk/government/n...

It's an odd document. Usually you'd have an impact assessment with policy objectives, options and their costs and impacts - aligning with policy choices.

But the Impact Statement seems like it was produced retrospectively, justifying (not always very convincingly) the 10YHP policy choices.

The 10YHP made the bold, false & easily refutable claim that there's unequivocal evidence that shifting care to the community is cheaper.

The Impact Statement says their literature review found mixed impacts on costs.

Suggesting the literature review was undertaken after the 10YHP was finalised?

What explains the divergence between consumer confidence of the over- and under-50s? @faisalislam.bsky.social for BBC
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

DHSC published its impact statement for the 10 Year Health Plan this week (yes, that is 6 months after it published the plan)

It's more measured and clear-eyed than the original document and quite a contrast to some of the effusive optimism in the plan

Some of the things that caught my eye 👇

Footnote: it's not immediately obvious where the government's estimates come from but the 2 calories a day reduction is consistent with the previous government's assessment of the impact of advertising bans (option F).
assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/60d352...

All of this underlines the point that many obesity experts are making: the ban is a good first step but, without wider action on our food environment, will be insufficient to address the obesity challenge.
bsky.app/profile/heal...

The reduction of 7.2 billion calories is equivalent to around 6 cans of coke per child per year. Or, put another way, around 2 calories per child per day – around 0.15% of daily consumption.