It could happen to anyone. There you are, in your favourite Italian restaurant, tucking in to a blow of spaghetti Bolognese, enjoying a glass of Chianti.
Somehow the glass slips from your fingers and your immaculate white shirt and silk tie end up wearing your lunch. Spag-Bol and red wine make you look like an extra in a horror movie.
There is only one thing for it; nip into Marks and get a shirt and tie. Simple enough. The very nice lady directs you to the shirts; 16 � neck, slim fit, double cuff, just the job.
Now, a posh tie.
'Sorry' says the nice lady, ' we don't sell ties, you will have to go down the road to the tie shop....'
Yes, ridiculous. Of course it is. As daft as Sainsbury's selling bread and not butter. A fish shop that doesn't sell chips. A pub that sells beer but not whiskey.
There was a time, in the high street; you went to the bakery for bread, the butchers for some chops and the green grocer for your bananas. Now the night street is full of pubs, building societies and charity shops. The supermarkets have put everything we need in one place.
Italian olive bread, buffalo steaks and cumquats. As much as we might all reflect and rue the demise of the high street, and in some places they have survived, the fact is, although not without controversy, goods and services are hugely better than they were when I was a butcher's boy, delivering a pound of mince and six pork-bangers, on a bike.
Retail managers with lap-tops and smart suits call it integrating the shopping experience.
Integration, the Holy Grail of health services. Integration of the patient experience.
For too long health and social care have been distant cousins. All the evidence is, where people work together, it is cheaper and better for everyone.
In theory there is no technical impediment to stop health and social care working together. They have been able to joint fund initiatives for years. Good examples were hard to find. Next, the Better Care Fund that I thought was a neat way of taking NHS cash and giving social services a bung.
The BCF has matured and there are now targets for outcomes but it doesn't overcome the real elephant in the room...
Healthcare is free at the point of use and much of social care is means tested. This creates accountability and governance issues that have to be worked around. Not impossible but a trip hazard.
And, politically toxic. Could a porous boundary mean all social care is free, or all healthcare is means-tested?
Ask health managers what is their greatest problem? Most will tell you; delayed transfers of care. Usually, elderly, frail patients marooned in the system unable to move on.
Unsurprisingly there are examples of solving this problem If you search 'delayed transfers of care' at The Academy there are 21 examples. However, there is no cross boundary mechanism for sharing joint best practice. I think it's time for a change.
I'm pleased to tell you about a new collaboration at our Academy of Fabulous NHS Stuff.
We will be creating a new source and fountain-head to share innovation and good, practical, ideas about working with colleagues in Social Care. You can see the first share pages right here.
You can read more about it here.
Great services can only be built through openness and a willingness to share information. When we have information we have insight. When we have insight we have the basis of a conversation about what to do for the best. Through sharing we create a new accountability around doing what is best and making it better.
Like sharing a meal, or a view or a song, sharing the best of what we do creates precious moments of real progress, pride and a joy in our achievements.
Just over a year ago the Academy started with the aim to make good stuff more accessible, transparent and open.
Half a million page views later we think it's time to invite our distant cousins to become our brothers and sisters in care; all the same family and all on the same page.
