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As a newcomer to the nhs (one month today!) I detect a total strategic drift on these issues. On the one hand I'm expected to put apparently ever-increasing amounts of granular costing and activity data in the public domain, and on the other I'm supposed to be entering into an "any willing provider" marketplace, in which I have to try to sell my services to and in competition with organizations who have free access to my "trade secrets". If the DH is serious about the efficiency of markets, then see it through - commissioners will simply have to live with the lack of information and genuinely test the market to get the best price / quality combination. If not, then please accept that markets cannot deliver the improvements expected. But leaving things as they are will resolve nothing - I have already seen the strategic confusion playing out at a local level in decreasing trust between commissioners and providers.