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There is an old adage in healthcare, ‘you can make your mistress your patient but you cannot make your patient your mistress’.  

It seems pretty reasonable and I can’t say that I have ever fallen foul of that, not in terms of ‘intermit relationships’. 

There is one deviation to that rule though, and that is in the friendship that I have discovered with Alan Simpson. 

Alan was the Labour MP for Nottingham South for almost 20 years and is still proud to be the man of whom Tony Blair said “I would not have him in my Cabinet if he was the last member of the Parliamentary Labour Party”. Alan wears that badge quite proudly.

I first saw him when he was referred to me by his General Dental practitioner for some treatment. The appointments were always very long as we couldn’t stop talking. 

At the end of his treatment we decided we would meet for a coffee to continue the conversations and have done so (irregularly) ever since. 

Alan is a mentor, a coach and an inspiration on a much higher intellectual plane than I could ever hope to climb to. 

He understands social justice better than anyone I have ever met (and incidentally he was the MP responsible for the feed-in-tariff legislation which allows you to have solar panels on your roof). His main areas of interest are environment, climate and sustainable energy, but all focussed around his approach to sustainable economics. 

Alan writes regularly and sends me what he writes. I’d be happy to send it on if anyone was interested. You can also read his blogs here. 

He takes me outside of my little bubble and shows me the bigger picture ... and what a huge picture it is. 

Alan still works at the Houses of Parliament as an advisor on climate and energy. He understands the difficulty of politics and how it is difficult in politics to change things for the better. Changing things to what you feel is right is today's biggest challenge, especially when we are running out of options of to get the planet to a place where we can live safely. 

We all control our input and where we get our information from. It’s one of the most important considerations in life, because we become what we assimilate and in part we become who we surround ourselves by. 

It was in fact a great day for me when Alan Simpson had dental problems and required my attention!

Blog post number: 1594