Editor's blog Wednesday 4 May 2011: The full glory of the listening exercise

There was great interest in the Future Forum's 119 listening events yesterday. Various Twitter health policy people started to ask questions.

As did a good friend, who was genuinely hoping to engage with the events in good faith. She and colleagues sought to get a list of the events.

And were surprised by the degree of difficulty this involved.

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I relayed to her during our chat the suggestion that DH and SHA Powers That Temporarily Be were seeking for all staff engagement events to be rebadged as FF Listening Events (and if you have any documentary proof, please email it to editorial AT healthpolicyinsight.com).

She in return told me that eventually, she had concluded that the 119 events figure seemed to belong to the august category of Things That Are Officially Said That Are Not True.


And concluded with the wonderful line that she had been told to ask the Future Forum for the official list. Fine, she replied: what's their phone number?

Can you guess the next bit?

That's right: the Future Forum, which is running the Government's listening exercise, does not take incoming calls.