As a self-confessed member of the worried well, I ask that people think carefully before they throw strange words at me.  Particularly on the day of a regular visit to my ‘prescription-happy’ doctor.

A colleague asked me this morning how my interregnum was going.  It  sent me into a momentary panic.  Is it treatable I wondered anxiously?  Then I asked myself if I’d been asleep longer than I thought during which time there had been an overnight interregnum akin to other moments in history such as the Spanish Inquisition.

Finally I realised she was referring to my being between two jobs – I start at Ovarian Cancer Action on Monday.  Phew.

The final days of the Department of Health’s listening exercise have seen a last minute flurry of submissions.  I read on BBC News Online that over 15,000 comments have been made and 750 letters received by some poor official who only three months ago had an empty in-tray. The Association of Medical Research Charities’ (AMRC) submission on behalf of the charity sector can be found here – and very good it is too.  Elsewhere the King’s Fund has kept up its usual pace of incisive criticism with a report on accountability in the proposed new NHS set-up.

Indeed, accountability is a theme that has resonated strongly in these final days.  Mark Walport, Director of the Wellcome Trust, referred to it in his Times article yesterday.  The Daily Telegraph reports this morning that the inclusion of patients and the public in the management boards overseeing GP consortia, is likely to be one of the key recommendations that the NHS Future Forum chaired by Steve Field will make when it reports to the Cabinet shortly.

That has to be right.  There seems to be an inherent contradiction between Big Society politics and the NHS reforms if the public are not to be given greater access and opportunity to influence and shape how health care is delivered in their neighbourhood.  Of course, that’s always assuming you believe in the Big Society mantra.

But I do understand the difficulties for the Government in getting the composition of these bodies right given the equally understandable clamour from all and sundry to be represented.  I see the nurses are the latest to make their pitch today.  However, patient and public representation should be one of those ‘red lines’ for charities and the voluntary sector on which we should not give way in the months ahead.

If you are planning a holiday around developments with the NHS reforms then you may wish to take a look at the Financial Times article today which speculates about the timetable from here onwards.

Not long now before we’ll find out how much of its original plans the Government decides to alter or whether it is intent on flying in the face of its own self-imposed interregnum. 

Footnote:  By the way, I heard an interesting bit of ‘Whitehall’ news last week which is that the Office for the Strategic Co-ordination for Health Research (OSCHR) has moved offices from its HM Treasury base (its home for the last few years) and is now located in the Department of Health.  Happy to be corrected if I am wrong.