As accountants we are taught, during years of professional training, to be right miserable bastards. Pessimists. Doom and gloom merchants always looking to spoil someone’s fun. We give it a fancier title though and call it being prudent. And a consequence of this prudence is that we learn to treat numbers, especially ones with pound signs in front of them, with a dose of scepticism. If we think something looks odd then we examine the evidence and challenge it if necessary. That’s our job.

And it’s no different for those of us who crunch numbers for a living in the NHS; poring over our spreadsheets and budget statements we are there to assist clinical colleagues to manage the increasingly limited resources at their disposal as well as they possibly can. All of the time being careful not to deliberately over-state or under-state a number to make it look better or…