The Slog’s special series last week on secrecy, corruption and waste across the piece of social and health care in Stafford is a symptom of the whole NHS culture.

Well over half of hospital trusts inspected last year provided the public with incorrect information on their performance and quality of care, says the BBC Panorama programme.

Three in five Trusts provided inaccurate information to the Government regulator, a spokesman for the programme claims. He’d say ‘lies’, but one has to be careful of the Carters and the Rucks.

Mike O’Brien (middling sort of health person wheeled out to take hospital passes) told the press (my emphasis):

“If you say to me, ‘Are we still too secret?’ to an extent yes, we need to be more open. Is the health service as secret as it was? It’s a lot more open than it ever has been in the past. Is it open enough? No, it’s not open enough – and we need to be much more open in the future than we have been in the past.”

Is the correct answer. The extent, however is roughly 100%, Michael.You could start with lies told to the press, to the coroners, to the Family Courts. Then you could move on to pressure on psychiatrists, unanswered calls to management, delayed FOI information,lies to MPs…..

Dirty job Michael, but someone’s got to do it. And Andy Burnham (nice man) seems to have nominated you.