These are torrid times for those organising public consultations in the National Health Service. And the fallout from their experience will ripple through a wide range of other services where change is the order of the day.

Faced with almost daily allegations that corrode people’s confidence in Managers and Inspectors alike, a hapless Secretary of State appears regularly in Parliament having to explain away yet another embarrassment. None has been more dramatic than the unexpected suspension of the Safe and Sustainable review of children’s cardiac surgery in England.