What's the difference between Winifred Robinson, presenter on You and Yours, and David Behan, new CEO of the CQC (Care Quality Commission)?

Well when I listened to Radio 4's You and Yours today, I found the most pertinent difference was one of language. Winifred Robinson is an excellent presenter who always seeks clarity and is really good at winkling it out of her interviewees. The big problem with the interview with David Behan was that she spoke in English, the language of most of her listeners, I guess, and he persisted in speaking in gobbledygook, aka management-speak/jargon, despite all her efforts to get him to engage in a meaningful exchange. It doesn't augur well. When the next ghastly incidences of cruelty and incompetence inevitably occur in a care home or similar place of torture/care of the vulnerable, the relatives and others concerned about the welfare of the innocent victims will all be complaining, writing, speaking or weeping in English, and will be bewildered by his agency's bureaucratic lingo. Except that I'm sure they'll recognise that it's bugger-all to do with Care, in any sense of the word. - Judge for yourself. - You can 'Listen now' from this page.

You and Yours discussed organ donation and whether the system should be changed so that more organs would be available for donation

Radio 4's You and Yours discussed organ donation and whether the system should be changed so that more organs would be available for donation.They asked "Should everyone be forced to donate their organs?" Personally I'm not in favour of changing the opt-in system to an opt-out.

There were some moving contributions from listeners who had experiences both good and bad in the matter of organ donation. And there was mention of some donated organs being, in effect, wasted on recipients who, for example, continued drinking too much alcohol, like George Best, and damaged the donated organ.

There was no mention of the doctors who waste donated organs. Here is an example I blogged about in 2006: "Michael had had damaged kidneys and had patiently lived on a very low salt diet for years while waiting for a new kidney. Then he was overjoyed at last to receive a new kidney. The doctors in the hospital told him it would now be OK for him to eat an ordinary diet, not salt-restricted. And so while still in the hospital he was given an ordinary diet. At the same time they put him onto steroids. The consequences have been dire. He put on a lot of weight and his new kidney now has impaired function. He said to me that he would never go to a doctor again in his life - that he would rather die than have any further contact with doctors. I believe that there are many damaged people who would rather die than have further contact with doctors...)o:" For details of the harm done by eating salty food while taking steroids, see Steroids Cause Salt Sensitivity.

On Radio 4's You and Yours programme today, there was a discussion about a new fundraising advert for cancer research which is causing controversy.

See You and Yours webpage. One of the interviewees was a spokesperson for Cancer Research UK, who was urging listeners to make donations to that charity and claiming that the money donated would do a lot of good. I take leave to doubt that.

On Tuesday, 20 November 2007, the BBC News website carried a report about a File on 4 investigation into cancer research wasting vast amounts of donated money and taxpayers' money on worthless studies.

Extracts from that webpage:

"Millions of pounds of charity donations and taxpayers' money have been wasted on worthless cancer studies, the BBC has learned.

File On 4 has discovered thousands of studies have been invalidated.

It found some scientists have failed to carry out simple and inexpensive checks to ensure they are working with the right forms of human tumour cells."

"Cancer Research UK, which spends £315m a year on research, would not be interviewed for the programme."

It's a pity You and Yours's Julian Worricker did not take the opportunity to bring up Cancer Research's colossal careless squandering of those £millions of cancer charity donations on worthless cancer studies, and to remind listeners of that past, inexcusable waste.