4/49pm: We have three Amazon vouchers worth £100 each to give away to anyone who tries the HSJ tablet app. To be in with a chance of winning, simply download the app to your iPad or Android device and sign in with the same username and password you use for hsj.co.uk. We will pick three winning users from random after the draw closes on 31 October. If you don’t have an hsj.co.uk username, you can register for free here. More information on the Amazon offer here.

4.42pm: Need a laugh? Endgame is always at hand.

4.37pm: The latest blog from Rob Findlay, our Waiting Time Guru, is live. “The CQC and Monitor are marking down hospitals who treat their long-waiting patients, making it harder for them to clear backlogs and restore short waiting times,” he writes. “Monitor have been doing this for ages, but over the summer they made a surprise and apparently conscious decision to continue after consulting on the matter.” Read the full blog here.

4.25pm: We reported that a Conservative MP has demanded a full audit of the organisation that runs the NHS property service after revealing it transferred funds for capital projects into day to day revenue budgets. This struck a nerve with some readers on hsj.co.uk:

If you are looking to do more for less, property is a good place to start. Real work need to be done urgently. Reconstructing the edifice that got us into this mess under a different guise isn’t the right way to go about it.

It would be great if this audit also included a review of the rationale of property transfer pre- and post- 1st April 2013. I understood that there was a lot of last minute scrabbling around trying to persuade NHS trusts and also non-NHS agencies to take property that had formerly been owned by SHAs and PCTs.

All sounds worrying when you are practising from 19th century converted premises, want to build and move to new premises but are told there is no money… then the CQC are breathing down your neck!

2.19pm: And on Twitter, one from our commander in chief…

Alastair McLellan ‏@HSJEditor
Personally, I will consider it a sign of maturity, when a ministers admits a £120bn sector needs thousands of £100k+ managers

2.13pm: Jeremy Hunt’s remarks about high NHS salaries has predictably prompted some pithy debate on hsj.co.uk. Here are a few:

Surely the use of the Prime Minister’s current salary is unfair. Given his future earnings as a non-exec for hedge funds, after dinner speaker and UN/US special representative in [insert troubled region] it would be more sensible to treat the post of PM as being a Trainee Ex-Prime Minister.

Why does Mr Hunt not focus on fixing the funding formula and the chaos of overlapping responsibilities in quangos set up by his government??

Jezza could do worse than actually look at what the benefit of what people bring to the job rather than sling mud. Maybe they’ll bring in a minister who knows what he/she’s doing for the amount he’s earning.

If Mr Hunt wanted to have a pop - how about the number of £500-1,000/day consultants floating around?

1.34pm: NHS England has been urged to intervene to resolve the “chaotic vacuum” in pathology services resulting from a series of botched restructures. The Royal College of Pathologists has written to NHS England to raise concerns around the “detrimental impact” the failed reconfigurations could have on services.

12.35pm: The General Medical Council has told HSJ it will investigate an apparent statistical link between high mortality rates and the numbers of doctors receiving a warning or sanction. The medical regulator says it plans to carry out further study and will work with other organisations to understand the link which emerged in its annual State of Medical Education and Practice report.

12.33pm: Cambridge University Hospitals Foundation Trust failed to declare a never event incident, according to the Care Quality Commission. HSJ has seen a letter sent by the CQC chief executive David Behan to NHS England which says a surgical incident, where the tip of a surgical glove around an inch in length was left inside a patient, should have been declared.

12.30pm: Monitor has warned Derby Hospitals Foundation Trust that it must improve emergency department waiting times and its financial performance, reports HSJ’s Sophie Barnes. Read the story here.

12.20pm: From the Telegraph: senior doctors have called on Jeremy Hunt to authorisemass closures of A & E departments at overstretched hospitals, saying it will prevent patients dying needlessly.  The rationale for this measure is that this will mean fewer large hospitals, so there are sufficient numbers of senior staff and specialists in each.

12.15pm: The health secretary has asked the chief executives of eight national health and care oversight bodies to review high salaries, and may cap the number of their employees who can earn more than £100,000, according to reports. Mr Hunt said the NHS risked losing public confidence because of a “culture of excessive pay and pay-offs”. He also hopes to address high salaries in NHS providers, newspaper reports said.

12.08pm: The Times says that Norman Williams, president of the Royal College of Surgeons, says patients would need to accept hospital closures and mergers in order have a complete seven day NHS service.

11.55am: The BMA has backed seven day services by the NHS, apparently reversing its position, says the Guardian.

10.49am: Parents are welcome to help their children in hospital at meal times but the same is nottrue for elderly relatives, says Yvonne Sawbridge in a new blog today. She asks whether we need to rethink our relationship with the state.

10.45am: A review, led by Ann Clwyd, of NHS complaints system is expected to publish its conclusions later today.

9.45am: A truly seven-day NHS is a step closer after doctors’ leaders softened their opposition to supermarket-style opening hours, says the Daily Mail. After months of opposition to calls for seven-day services, the British Medical Association has agreed the quality of care provided in hospitals at the weekend needs to be improved. This removes one of the main obstacles to a seven-day NHS.

9.42am: The Independent is just one news source to report the fuel fears of older people this winter. “Three million elderly people fear they will not be able to stay warm in their own homes this winter, following the recent steep increases in the cost of heating, according to research published today.”

9.34am: Health service bosses face a new crackdown on excessive pay launched by health secretary Jeremy Hunt, reports the Telegraph. Hunt warns that the NHS risked losing public confidence because of a “culture of excessive pay and pay-offs”. If you haven’t exceeded your 20-story-a-month paywall limit, you can read it here.

9.30am: The Guardian says that almost three-quarters of cancer patients in England who die in hospital would prefer to die at home, figures have suggested. This is the equivalent of 36,000 cancer patients every year, the estimated data from Macmillan Cancer Support showed. It comes as the charity launches a report setting out recommendations for improving choice at the end of life. Full story.

9.27am: Good morning and welcome to a new week of HSJ Live, where you’ll find rolling coverage of all the news, opinion and occasional tittle tattle orbiting the world of healthcare leadership.

New in Resource Centre today, Mark Tooley and Bernie Marden analyse the impact on parents, children and staff of an innovative neonatal intensive care unit at their hospital in Bath. You can read that here.