Labour, like the Tories believes that if you alone measure patient 'throughput', nurses and doctors training and keep an eye on money, use lots and lots of overpaid 'consultants', then then the Health service will be saved.

To this twisted end the National Board for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting for Scotland (NBS) is to be abolished along with similar bodies in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Instead, each country will have a national office with substantial devolved powers. In Scotland, the office will be expected to work closely with the Scottish parliament.

Baroness Hayman said a consultants (unspecified) report told her this was the best course of action.

Hyaman went on to say "Today's announcement is part and parcel of our wider agenda to modernise the NHS to make it fit for the 21st century. Our response [to the review] shows our commitment to provide a modern, flexible framework within which the nursing, midwifery and health-visiting professions can best protect the interest of the patient, and which will ensure that practitioners and their patients can feel secure that the profession will set and monitor its standards effectively."

The "monitor" statement is the rub. Confuse and disorient patients and caregivers with numbers rather than hard delivery of patient care.

Typically Tory, typically Nu-Labour.