Tom Smith on today’s health policy debates.

BMA deliver petition to Downing Street

An Independent article today notes that “a bitter war of words has broken out between government and family doctors over plans for polyclinics across England”. After Health Minister Ben Bradshaw yesterday accused the BMA of “misleading and mendacious” behavior, the BMA will hit back today will a show of popular support.

Tom Smith introduces a new daily analysis of health policy debate that will appear exclusively on Health Policy Insight at teatime each day.

While press summaries give readers a clue about the surface of debate our new summary aims to scratch beneath the surface and make sense of what is being discussed. It aims to set the reports in context and compare commentary across the British print and broadcast media. Each day the press is full of discussion about health policy, partly reflecting the current highly charged political atmosphere, but also a fair amount of uncertainty about the aims of policy, how different elements link together or don’t, and more crucially how policy should be taken forward and by whom.