I met Sandra quite by chance. NHS stalwart, nurse with over 20 years' experience, Mum, wife, enjoys life and hates her job.

It was one of those conversations you end up having; in the kitchen, at a party, when it's late. Squeezing the last drop out of the dead bottles, as the Bing-Bongs from the front door announced the arrival of another taxi to take the revelers home.

'It's not what it was' she said, 'we used to have time to sit and have a chat... now they are in and out before you get to know their names and the others don't know their names.' Sandra was genuinely upset at that morning's bad press; nursing trashed over standards of care. 'What are we supposed to do? There aren't enough of us, you never see a manager on the wards and some days it's chaos. I go home knackered.' Sandra didn't mince words. She told me she was a 'third-generation' nurse, but she persuaded her daughter being a lawyer was a better idea.

It was a stupid question for me to ask, the moment the words came out of my mouth I regretted it; "What do you think of the CNO's six 'C's?"

'What's a CNO, what C's?'

"You know; the chief nursing officer's Care and Compassion and Courage and all that..." I couldn't remember what they were. All I can say is I was pleased when the Bing-Bong from the front door announced the arrival of Sandra's taxi. In summary I think it is fair to say that Sandra had no idea that there was a Chief Nurse and didn't need a lecture on any of her 'C's'. I'll paraphrase for the sake of politeness; Sandra was of the view there were only two 'C's' that mattered, cash and colleagues on the wards. There was a third, let's settle for 'claptrap'.

Apart from a coterie of apparatchiks I doubt the CNO's six 'C's will find a resonance in the real world of the understaffed, under-pressure, under-the-cosh front line of bed-pans, bed-sores and bed-stays. What is the point of the Chief Nurse if she can't say what we all say; 'nurses do care about what they do and for the people they look after, are compassionate, have a huge commitment, they are probably the best communicators in the NHS, they have the courage to work among the drunks in A&E at three in the morning, are highly trained and have huge levels of competence'.

Forget the 'C's, there are 'L's' aplenty; leadership, love and loads-a-common-sense.

What is the point of a Chief Nurse if she can't say what we all (the CQC, Dr Foster, the Guardian Staff Survey, The Patients Association, the Press, Patient Voices, Patients First, the RCN, UNISON, you the readers) say; the numbers of nurses and skill mix on the front-line is being stripped, 6,000 nurses have lost their jobs, nurse vacancies are being left open, agency staff fill gaps, waving goodbye to continuity and stability, healthcare assistants (however committed) are not nurses and there are often more of them on the wards than nurses.

What is the point of a Chief Nurse who takes refuge in management-speak, layer-cake strategy and policy when she should be talking the front-line language of tactics and techniques to coax more care from no more money. Strategy doesn't fix anything, people do.

What is the point of a Chief Nurse who cannot explain why the NHS can't reliably do what it is there for; look after your Granny? And, not recognise that compassion is eroded by the caustic effect of one nurse to eleven frail elderly patients, each of whom might take 40 minutes to feed.

What is the point of a Chief Nurse who does not demand, insist and mandate that nurses who have the courage to speak out are not bullied, terrified, denounced and themselves reported to the NMC by shifty employers?

What is the point of a Chief Nurse who turns the heat on her powerless colleagues at the front-line, none of whom can change budgets, staffing levels and the policies that have led to this crisis and does not kick down the Boardroom doors and hold the Nurse Director's feet to the fire?

Chief Nurse? What is the point?