I must be mad

Writing for Conservative Home this week LBC presenter Iain Dale declared:

I must be mad. I have just accepted an invitation to give a lecture on the NHS to 50 doctors, surgeons and consultants from a London hospital in late January. Why on earth can’t I just learn to say “no”? I don’t do a lot of speeches nowadays ... So when this invitation came in my instinct was to say “no” on the basis that it would involve too much preparation time, and that I wasn’t enough of an expert on the subject.

But then I thought, well, that’s never stopped me before and, frankly, I have learned a huge amount about the NHS from all the time I spend talking to people about it and getting them to give their experiences on my radio show. So I’ve chosen as my title 'The NHS: Things That Need to be Said'. That should give me enough rope to hang myself ... All ideas welcome.

This struck a chord because I recently received an invitation to speak at the Policy Forum for Wales Keynote Seminar: Improving health and wellbeing - public health programmes, legislation and integration, also in January.

Other speakers, I learned, are:

• Dr Sara Hayes, ‎Director of Public Health, Abertawe Bro Morgannwg University Health Board
• Rhianon Urquhart, Senior Health Improvement Officer, Caerphilly County Borough Council
• Professor Stephen Monaghan, UK Board and Executive Member, The Faculty of Public Health (Royal Colleges of Physicians of the UK) and Consultant in Public Health Medicine, Public Health Wales
• Dr Graham Moore, Research Fellow, DECIPHer UKCRC Public Health Research Centre of Excellence, Cardiff University

There will also be a "senior representative" of the food and drink industry.

Like Iain my instinct was to say "no". But I hate saying "no", so I said "yes".

I must be mad.