Despite fevered speculation that there would be a trawl of local candidates in the hunt for a chief executive for the new Leeds 'supertrust', the post has now been advertised externally. Which could be a blessing for NHS boss Alan Langlands, who has been heard to joke in the past that he is on the look-out for a trust close to his Yorkshire home to manage after he's done tramping the Whitehall corridors of power. What better solution than to take over one of the biggest teaching trusts in Europe?

On the subject of career moves, there is absolutely no truth in the wild rumours that North Thames regional director Ron Kerr is leaving for pastures new at Executive headquarters to work alongside Al Liddell. It is true, Mr Kerr tells Monitor, that he has been working on the white paper with the Exec's policy and performance management director - but no more than anyone else, he says: 'I have no plans whatsoever to move on, and nor have I have been asked by the Exec to go and work for them.' That said, it couldn't possibly be true either, then, that former UCLH chief executive Charles Marshall, who left the London trust two weeks ago, is to replace Mr Kerr at North Thames.

Unison's head of health, Bob Abberley, has apparently been taking lessons on how to be a good New Labour union leader from the infamous spin doctors of Millbank Tower. He hinted at something of the kind during a pay conference in Winchester last week. Introduced as a 'controversial' trade unionist, he responded: 'I am not controversial any more because I have to be on message. So I shall do what the minister (Alan Milburn) did this morning and tell you absolutely nothing in a very nice way.'

Mr MIlburn may be pleasantness personified, but has the health secretary himself perhaps been guilty of not-so-nice ageism, Monitor wonders? Think of Madge Partridge, who was appointed to the board of Walsall Hospitals trust in 1993 and rose to become its vice-chair but has not been re-appointed. The trust comments: 'It is thought that the fact that she is almost 70 years of age was against her.' What a pity, it goes on, that she was not able to continue as 'she had devoted considerable hours at the town's two hospitals'. But she was 'not bitter and accepted the ageing process may have been held against her'. Tut, tut....

Finally, innocent until proven guilty and all that. But you would think that, with current goings-on at the General Medical Council, United Bristol Healthcare trust would be a bit chary about letting the public into its operating theatres. But it threw open the doors at Bristol Royal Infirmary to mark the start of Science Week on Saturday, noting in a press release that, 'last year's open day attracted hundreds of local people eager to see what really goes on in an operation'. Apparently it was 'very popular with children'. Did no one's blood run the tiniest bit cold at the very idea of it?