In a last minute controversial intervention Matt Hancock has torpedoed plans in Lancashire to consolidate emergency services. This has frustrated local NHS leaders and could potentially stifle future planning and innovation. And raises the question, is he even allowed to do this in the first place?

Plans are also being worked up this spring to get the spiralling elective waiting list under control – we discuss the challenges health service leaders are grappling with right now when trying to get non-covid work back on track.

Featuring James Illman, Lawrence Dunhill and Annabelle Collins.

Reasonable or “unnecessarily hostile”? This week’s HSJ Health Check debates whether its right for a trust to threaten its staff with disciplinary or regulatory action if they try and have their second covid jab early.

University Hospitals Birmingham FT sent an email to its workforce doing just this. Could this have been communicated better?

We also discuss whether mandatory vaccination could be on the cards for health professionals and whether there is a role for the regulators here too.

And it may come as a surprise to some, but data has revealed patient good will towards the health service has dropped sharply since the autumn. A symptom of the continued impact on electives? Or could this change direction considering the success of the vaccine programme?

Featuring Annabelle Collins, Matt Discombe and Rebecca Thomas.

One of the pandemic’s apparent success stories has been  the development and operation of an NHS covid-19 data store. Holding  information on everything from ventilators to vaccinations, the data  store has driven the NHS and government’s decision-making throughout.

However,  privacy campaigners have raised concerns about the way in which  sensitive NHS data could be used by the companies involved in the data  store. And what does the future hold for the data store once the  emergency rules on information-sharing can no longer be justified?

In  this podcast, HSJ’s Nick Carding quizzes the UK head of Palantir – one  of the main companies involved in the data store - about its work on one  of the most important government data projects.

HSJ revealed this week NHSX – the tech agency set up by Matt Hancock not quite two-years ago – is set to merge with NHS England. We ask what this says about the government’s tech ambitions, who could be parachuted in to lead the new directorate and why a separate agency was created in the first place.

We also cover the surprising news almost 2 million people have been added to the shielding list and bumped up the vaccination priority groups. Why leave it so late in the pandemic to make such a significant decision?

Featuring Sharon Brennan, Nick Carding and Annabelle Collins.

This week the team analyses what government’s new health plan – the most significant reform of the NHS in nearly a decade – really means.

While giving integrated care systems a statutory footing and axing the NHS tender process, if passed the proposals would give the health secretary far-reaching powers over NHS England, other arm's length bodies and local reconfigurations.

Featuring Sharon Brennan, Ben Clover, Annabelle Collins and Dave West.

This week the team discuss two major stories, unrelated, but both in the Midlands.

We discuss Rebecca Thomas’ investigation into “heartbreaking” patient safety incidents in University Hospitals Birmingham FT’s haematology services. This was prompted by more whistleblowers than ever before making contact with her.

We also cover University Hospitals of Leicester’s “unprecedented” financial breakdown, after further revelations about the trust's relationship with its external auditors.

And of course, an update on covid pressures too. Although admissions are slowly declining there has been little relief in ICU departments and for staff.

“Resilience requires buffer and buffer can look wasteful until the moment that it isn’t,” Simon Stevens told MPs at a committee hearing in parliament this week. We discuss how the pandemic made the NHS’ approach to running everything to optimum, just-in-time efficiency fall apart.

We also talk about NHS England’s decision to start collecting race and ethnicity date when giving the covid vacation seven weeks after the programme was launched and what impact this could have on health inequalities.

And of course, a vaccine roll-out update, did the NHS miss its care home vaccination target after all?

Featuring Annabelle Collins, Nick Kituno, Jasmine Rapson and Jack Serle

Operational pressures on the NHS because of covid are still high, and although admissions are starting to level off in some places, the usual winter challenge of patient discharge is more troubling than ever.

This week Sharon Brennan, Nick Carding, Annabelle Collins and Dave West reflect on the barriers to covid patient discharge, why funding from the Treasury is too little, too late and why domiciliary care is the real pinch-point.

We also delve into the logistics of vaccine delivery and why high-vaccinating areas of the country are seeing their vaccine supplies halved.

And, a gimmick or sensible worst case scenario planning? We reveal how much the Nightingale hospitals really cost.

Hospitals in the Midlands are being primed to take covid patients from London and the South East, but with the tidal wave of covid admissions sweeping north this seems like a very short term fix.

This week on the podcast the team track how admissions are changing throughout the country, with numbers starting to dip in London for the second day in a row. Things are looking less promising in other regions, with particular concern about the North once again.

We also discuss why the capital appears to be lagging behind on vaccines and why supply rather than manpower is a sticking point.

With Annabelle Collins, Lawrence Dunhill, Jasmine Rapson and Rebecca Thomas.

Amid the covid chaos and ever- climbing cases in England this week, the team try and dissect what’s going on. Our expert journalists discuss what is really means for the NHS to be “overwhelmed”, how the latest surge is affecting intensive care provision and the workforce and whether it’s time to return to the national emergency management approach to keeping the health service on its feet.

There is a silver lining we didn’t have in the spring – the vaccine – so we also discuss how the mass vaccination programme is progressing.

Featuring Ben Clover, Annabelle Collins, Matt Discombe and Dave West.