NHS IT : promises promises
This week the FT carried an interview with Richard Granger, new NHS IT supremo. The money on the table for NHS IT has shrunk - from £2.5 billion to £2.3 billion over the next three years - since last December, and also seems somewhat lower than the original £5 billion over five years proposed in the strategy document 'Delivering 21st Century IT Support for the NHS'.

Previous attempts to earmark money for NHS IT investment have always suffered from lack of ring-fencing. As a consequence, it has more often than not ended up being spent on high-profile - and laudable - non-IT targets, such as reducing waiting lists. It's not a good sign that proposed funds are vanishing even as they fly through the air towards the NHS IT pot.