“Dad, why are all your ‘peptalks’ about death?”

Children can be a source of fundamental insight. They seem to specialise in feedback of the unvarnished, unmediated and fully caffeinated variety. The kind of feedback that cuts straight to it. 

My youngest daughter, mid-way through our sunny walk down the hill to school, pressed on:

“And you wear black all the time. You look like a crow…”

In our recent paper we explore why levels of care continuity have been declining and what might be done to turn things around.

The Strategy Unit is collaborating with the Health Foundation to help address key health and social care issues by combining our expertise in data analysis.

All light brings shade. My list of ‘changes that have been all upside and no downside’ is short and debatable. It extends to anaesthetic dentistry, clean air, and clean water.

Maybe there are more.

But rather than trying to add to this list, what I'd like to do is to employ the founding insight: to look for the downsides that come with any innovation, however positive seeming. Plenty of people want others to see the light; I want them to recognise the shade.

I’ll do that here using the example of data to inform decision making.