Nutty boys

First, NHS chief executive Sir David Nicholson publicly set out the scale of the savings required in monetary terms, while other departments remained ominously quiet.

Then DH quality framework programme director Dominic Hardy framed it linguistically.

He recently told commissioners it was “grab your nuts and run round the wall time” - apparently an army term, and nothing to do with squirrels. Of course, End Game is far too refined to understand the exact nature of the phrase but the general gist is pretty clear. Look out for it in the next wave of commissioning guidance.