How to Run a Conference on Hospital Closures

Your cordial editor came across a document left on the podium at an NHS conference and thought she would print it here for your instruction;

How to Run a Conference on Hospital Closures

1. Call the participants 'stakeholders'. Do not, however, provide them with stakes; this could lead to misunderstandings.
   
   
   
2. Provide plenty of 'fiddling' material. Folders are good, post it notes are better and pens are mandatory. Even better if you provide a pen with a 'clicky' end; this provides endless entertainment and takes the minds of the participants off the subject of closures.
   
   
   
3. Turn up the heating; this makes the audience lethargic.
   
   
   
4. Put on a power point presentation. Take ages to change the slides. Mix up the x and y axes so that the information doesn't make any sense.
   
   
   
5. Present everyone with an eighty page document; good 'fiddling material' and make sure it has a clear page on the back free for doodling.
   
   
   
6. At lunchtime, load on the carbs and fat. Chicken Supreme is good; so is steak pie. Vegetarians are problematic, but the addition of a pudding esp Black Forest Gateau can provide the 2 o clock 'slump ' you are looking for.
   
   
   
7. Spilt everyone into discussion groups, but don't mix them; trade unionists in one group, doctors in another and the public in yet another. Otherwise they might share information and work out what's going on.
   
   
   
8. At 2 o'clock,when everyone is recovering from lunch, announce that you are 'modernising' the hospital, fit for the 21st century, with the very best in equipment and specialisms. NEVER use the word 'closure'.
   
   
   
9. Have your car , with its engine running, ready to leave at 2.03pm.
   
   
   
10. Destroy this document once you have read it, in case it falls into the wrong hands.