The power of continuous professional development in attracting, retaining and motivating staff was made abundantly clear to me during the last few weeks facilitating a series of NHS Apprenticeship conferences.

Open not only to young job-seekers, but also to people already employed within the NHS, the Apprenticeship offers terrific opportunities for individuals to flourish and to assimilate valuable skills. The audience was truly moved by the story a young woman learning how to make prosthetics at Roehampton. One of her teachers is about to retire after forty years making artificial limbs for NHS patients. Without this young woman’s enthusiasm and yearning to learn, this man’s accumulated wisdom and knowledge capital would have simply walked out of the door with him the day he left.

Nor is the assimilation of skills one-way traffic from old to young. A young man from Liverpool reported that his older colleagues were so “astounded” by the efficiencies delivered by his superior IT skills that they, in turn, requested IT training. And so the bar is raised all round.

Surely this is the way to create the “world-class” workforce our NHS needs and deserves.

How to retain customers in difficult times? How to deliver value in a recession?  After a recent incident involving vandalism to my car, I remain convinced that excellent customer service, not mere price, is the answer.

The repairer first nominated by my insurance company was so execrable that I shall be looking for an alternative insurer when my current policy expires.  Never mind that the repairer subsequently nominated to clear up the mess was absolutely brilliant, the damage had been done. In trying to palm me off with a cheap option, the global insurance company which charges a premium for its avowed customer care proved that my ongoing custom clearly does not matter.