(In yesterday’s post I made the point that I felt that the Secretary of State had shifted his position and now wanted to act to stop the bad results of the variation of practice with the NHS. This met with a number of responses from readers. Some of the early Twitter comments felt I was being incurably optimistic that the Secretary of State would really begin to tackle variation of practice by radically changing hospital organisation. It’s strange to be in the position of defending a very damaged Secretary of State, but I feel he has come to this position not through choice, but because he has had to.

18 months into the job he becomes responsible for the NHS and everything that happens to it. That means that the results of the CQC inspection that was published the week before stops being ‘the fault of the Labour Government’ and becomes the fault of this Government. Given that he has now agreed a set of changes to his Bill which demonstrate that he is firmly responsible for the NHS, it’s about now in the Parliament when, so far as the public are concerned, he becomes clearly responsible.