Much of the heavyweight reporting last week focused on HSJ's exclusive that the NHS is heading for a £1.8bn underspend.

Regional newspapers leapt on this, excoriating health bosses for sitting on millions while local trusts are strapped for cash.

But it fell to the Financial Times to try to trump HSJ's figure and inflate the surplus to£3bn. 'Some of that is working capital, but a fair proportion is likely to end up as a surplus by the end of the financial year,' it warned.

Meanwhile, the tabloids got in a frenzy about the number of Polish mothers giving birth in NHS hospitals. It had increased from 1,392 in 2003 to more than 6,600 in 2006 and was set to rise to 13,000 next year, warned the Daily Mail.

In Wales, the Western Mail pointed out that birth rates were up 2,000 on last year at a time when fewer midwives were entering the service.

The Sun continued the xenophobia by twinning those two betes noires of middle England: EU regulations and foreigners ripping us off.

Foreign patients may flock to Britain for free healthcare under EU plans to scrap medical border restrictions, it warned. Bills will be settled by the patient's government, The Sun pointed out. But there are fears that a big influx from Eastern Europe, where standards of treatment are low, could cripple the NHS.

Norfolk and Norwich University Hospital trust, meanwhile, re-enacted scenes reminiscent of the dying days of the last Tory government as a queue of ambulances formed outside its gates. The trust was on major incident alert, the major incident being, er, too many patients. Max Pemberton of the Daily Telegraph, blamed number-crunching managers.

'There isn't a bed crisis because there are too many patients; [but] because there are not enough beds,' he opined, conveniently ignoring the part played in the crisis by delayed discharge of elderly patients.