MPs on the Commons health committee have locked horns in a partisan fight over who is to blame for the Mid Staffordshire hospital scandal in which 1,2...

For all the government's tough talk of protecting the NHS, £2.2bn from the NHS budget was handed back to the Treasury in last week's budget. Ministers have let care standards slip as they obsess over an unnecessary reorganisation that's taken £3bn out of patient care when the frontline is making unprecedented savings.

Yesterday Andy Burnham stood before Parliament and, with incredible chutzpah, accused the government of failing to fully respond to the Francis report. This is, lest we forget, the report that he never wanted, about the NHS trust he so catastrophically recommended for Foundation Trust status.

The Francis Report raises many questions about the future of the NHS. We rightly want to know how we can prevent further shocking failures of care and we want people to be held to account if things do go wrong.

Our leadership challenge now is to show quickly that we have the ability to take the Francis report and make sure the NHS, the services it provides and the trust the British public have in it increases and enhances its reputation as one of the world's leading health care systems.