I suppose my time working as a regulator gives me at least some way of looking at such terms as well led.

I wrote a damning report once that basically said that the board of a hospital trust carried out its assurance programme and declared that it was well led. I pointed to the patients lying in their own excrement, high incidence of mortality outliers, infection rates, staff turnover, yadda yadda.

They had a different view to well led than I did it seems. But they had plenty of evidence to try to persuade me otherwise. The Dept of Health seemed to agree with me rather than them, which was fitting as they had asked me to go in and see what assurance looked like. It looked like the assurances we see in the works of Hastings, Sheffield and others, spewing statistics to prove the outcome bears no relationship to the cause.

The countless white crosses in Mute witness stand..... To what? Being well led?



Yes, yes, Keith. Artistic licence. They are rectangular grave stones zzzzzz