I’ve got a dinner dance to go to next Weds and would love you to be my plus-one! Could you bear to hang out with party members for a couple of hours? I think you owe me after that big reveal on Friday ;) x

Heart thumping, he put his phone down and tried not to admit he’d be waiting with bated breath for a response. He turned to his in tray and began reading through the latest minutes of the Health and Social Care Committee. Although he was very much at the start of his career, he wanted to stay informed of as many of the developments as he could. Well briefed is well armed, which was another of Tom Fielding’s maxims. He had the feeling that Tom would end up teaching him a lot.

He noticed that one of the issues on the discussion list for the committee was the funding of several new drugs by the National Health Service, and one of them caught his eye. It had been a long-term battle between the NHS and the pharmaceutical company to find a price for the drug that was mutually acceptable, and it seemed that the committee was still wrangling. Momentum was building, though, for this particular drug, through a combination of social media campaigning and public action. However, the two parties had been at stalemate for some time, despite legislation being agreed across Europe and the wider world. It was the drug that Rachel Jamieson, Holly’s sister, had come to see him about. With a lurch, he realised that a week had gone by and he’d almost completely forgotten to look into it. The folder of paperwork that Rachel had handed him was still sitting unattended in his in tray.