This may seem obvious but it’s a point I want to underline. Every day, when working with the NHS, I am experiencing an odd dissonance between the internal changes that we are discussing (as if they are absolutely enormous) and the reality of the front page stories about the world economy – which are really absolutely enormous.

Before the meetings begin, over coffee and at the end people are reading the front and business pages of the papers with real anxiety about what the future will hold. Last Friday’s papers had the Governor of the Bank of England saying that the problems for the world economy are probably worse than during the 1930s.