Earlier this year I blogged about a documentary following Gerry Robinson around a Hospital to see if he could “fix the NHS”. At the end of the series he was quite despondent as he felt that the Health service was often “quite rudderless” and afraid to empower its own staff.
Last night a followup documentary was televised to see how things at changed at Rotherham. Gerry Robinson was much more specific this time and spoke about the phenomenal amount of financial waste that he himself had witnessed. An administrative IT system which was running over ten years behind schedule and wasting 12 billion pounds throughout the NHS ( enough money to employ 60,000 nurses for a whole decade) . He also highlighted the fact that services are duplicated as the current government desperately endeavours to follow the latest fad or trendy management consultant speak.
Put simply, as someone who has lived a real life in the real world, there are far too many people involved in this government who neither posses the knowledge, or the basic skills to manage any institution, let alone the NHS (because they never had any exposure to the non political world). In the recent television series about Tony Blair, our previous Prime Minister admitted that after two years in the job he realised that it was necessary to delegate power within the public sector if it was to face genuine reform. Although he’ll never admit it, these are fundamental Conservative ideals.
When individuals gain power, a sense of responsibility often accompanies that attainment. The above issues do not relate to goodwill or prioritisation because I genuinely believe that all politicians, of any persuasion, will attempt to do the right thing once they achieve public office. However, the simple fact remains that our public services and the country as a whole requires politicians who are pragmatic, practical and in effect productive. Consistently, this government has sadly demonstrated that they are hopelessly inadequate in terms of realising these objectives.
Paul
Posted by pauluppal 