The FT on Saturday is worth buying; the Weekend Supplement is really interesting and full of good stuff. You can get it on-line but it's somehow not the same. Reading a newspaper and not getting ink on yer fingers is like playing cricket and not getting grass stains on yer Lillywhites.

The lead story was a surprise. It was about Labour Party shenanigans trying to develop a health policy. Labour is toying with the idea of some sort of NHS Tax, or uplift in National Insurance, or in some way ring-fencing the service from further austerity. Don't get excited. Miliband looks like he's going to dance around his handbag for a while yet.

In the meantime the Kings Fund is trying to jack up interest in their Commission on the Future of Health and Social Care in England due out on Thursday. So far their guest blogs have suggested co-payments, charging, top-ups, taxes and the best of the lot... taxing retired households to pay for care.

In the name of intellectual inclusiveness maybe publishing this sort of thing has a place. In the name of common-sense and electability it's about as useful as an ashtray on a Harley. The King's Fund is looking like a charity shop for daft ideas.

The King's interim report, published last April made more sense and seemed to be saying England needs a single health and social care system, with a ring-fenced, singly commissioned budget, and more closely aligned entitlements. However, read further and you will find:

"Proposals are considered for the 'harder' long-term choices, including extending NHS charges, developing a health insurance market... and a hypothecated tax for health and social care."

I think we can see where this will end up.

Additional payments, over and above taxes, are still a tax. Paid, presumably, out of income that has already been taxed? Top-ups and charges still count to GDP spent on health. We spend just over 9% of our GDP (that includes the private sector) on health putting us 15^th on a list of developed nations.

Everyone is faffing about, looking for ideas.  The question everyone seems to be missing is this; why are we in this mess? What it is the root cause?

Focus on NHS performance tracks back to Mid-Staffs and the Francis Report. The pressure to achieve FT status, ignoring everything else, is often identified as the source of their problems. It was not. The root-cause was focus on achieving FT status, ignoring everything else, without enough money in the system to balance the books... a prerequisite of FT status. The root-cause was money and that amplified all the other issues.

As a consequence staffing levels on wards have become today's focus. Ignore the uselessness of Gillian Leng's NICE guidance (wait till someone wets the bed and review your staffing levels) and note the numbers of Trusts scrambling overseas to bring in more nurses. So much so the NMC have introduced new thresholds for overseas nurse registration. I predict, when the full-year cost of the recruitment is felt, there will be tears before tea time. The root-cause of under-staffing... money.

A&E pressures are now the flavour of the month. This fabulous piece of work by the Nuffs tells us (in terms) it's not getting people into A&E that is the problem, it's not treating them... the numbers have not increased more than would be expected from population growth. The issue is getting people through the system.  

Blockages are largely in the bailiwick of Social Services... whose budgets have been cut by 27% and primary care whose share of the budget has fallen from 11% to 9%. The root-cause... money.

There is nothing wrong with the NHS or social services. They are working their socks off.  They just don't have enough money. Coalition austerity policies have hobbled the services. Another five years will cripple them.   

The NHS doesn't need more 'think-tankers' and wacky ideas.  It needs people who can do basic sums and realise five years of cuts and flat-line funding against 4% growth is a formula for disaster.