Integration and Collaboration

In my opinion there are two main systemic barriers to providing great health care on the NHS, currently (there are other ones also but in terms of the system itself – these are the two biggest). The answer to overcoming them btw is not privatisation via the TTIP. I like to look for solutions to problems, rather than focus on the negative….

So, firstly (and it really isn’t that hard to do, it just requires some funding, which in the medium/long term would be money seriously well spent):

 

iuAmalgamate patient electronic records and share them across the system. There is so much time/money wasted and clinical errors made because of this very easy to solve issue. I’m sure there are reasons why citizens may feel concerned and I really do understand them, but given the great work already going on in Tameside at the hands of the excellent, Dr Amir Hannan, and the positive feedback from patients, this needs to rolled out as far and wide as possible.

It helps patients feel more able to manage their own health conditions and ensures notes are always available at each consultation. It means medication changes are managed more safely and effectively and information is shared between professionals in a timely way.

 

And secondly:

iuBreak down the silo mentality and reality of the various care organisations. Breaking down the walls that prevent effective team working and amalgamating the budgets of health and social care will be a huge breakthrough for care. We are already seeing this with the establishment of Integrated Care Teams within general practice. The teams comprise of: GPs, Community Matrons, District Nurses, Community Therapists, Midwives, Health Visitors, Mental Health Teams, Social Workers, the Police, the Fire brigade, and a Care Co-ordinator to pull it all together. If you also throw into the mix third sector organisations aligned with practices and patient volunteers, you have an amazing force for good!

 

There are some warnings to put in place. Manchester, which is the first place to really try this under ‘Devo Manc’ is having a huge overall budget cut (20%) as it launches into it. The hope is that by working more collaboratively and in an integrated way, savings will be made. But the ‘Save our NHS’ group have some major misgivings.

 

 

If you wanted to know more about the details of DevoManc and the health impacts of that. You can find the Memorandum of Understanding here: http://www.nhshistory.net/mou%20(1).pdf and the Five Year Forward View here: http://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/5yfv-web.pdf
Innovative collaboration and integration of our health and social services does not have to mean the privatisation of them. But if the TTIP comes into effect, despite huge public opposition, then the NHS as we have known it will be over. IMO the TTIP deserves a full referendum by the people of Europe. If you don’t know about the TTIP, you need to, and you should seriously think about writing to your MEP to tell them why this deal needs to be stopped.

[1] Independent: What is TTIP? And six reasons why it should scare you:
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/what-is-ttip-and-six-reasons-why-the-answer-should-scare-you-9779688.html
Huffington Post: Corporate Courts — A Big Red Flag on ‘Trade’ Agreements:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-johnson/corporate-courts—-a-big_b_5826490.html
[2] MEPs will be voting on a resolution on TTIP in Strasbourg on June 10th. It’s not a legally binding vote, but what MEPs decide will send a strong message back to the European Commission about where we all stand on TTIP. If there’s enough opposition, especially to the worst parts of TTIP, it could damage the deal for good:
Euractiv: What will Parliamentarians vote on TTIP?
http://www.euractiv.com/sections/trade-society/what-will-eu-parliamentarians-vote-ttip-313845
[3] You can find out more about the European Citizens Initiative and who’s involved here:
https://stop-ttip.org/

 

If you want to, you can sign a petition here:

https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/eu-ttip-petition#petition

 

We need to continue with the kind of healthcare we actually believe in, improving it where this needs to happen, without it being stolen from those who need it most because of greedy trade deals.

 

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Healing our Corporate Soul

In my video blog about ‘Reimagining Health’, I talked about the fact that our well being is not and cannot be an isolated, individualistic experience. The truth is that we are part of a Corporate Body (that is a community of people with a physical environment in which we live) with a Corporate Soul (a set of beliefs/mindsets/worldview) and a connection to the Corporate Spirit (which in my view is either the spirit of love aka God or the spirit of fear). These corporate experiences have a massive impact on our individual sense of health and wellbeing, and actually, as we are part of the corporate, our individual wellbeing has an impact on others around us also.

Our Corporate Soul is the issue I want to concentrate on in this post. It is complex and something to which I believe we pay little attention. However, it’s effect on our individual and corporate wellbeing is vast. Take a moment to think about the subliminal messages that come through our various forms of news and multimedia everyday.

“Your life isn’t as good as your ‘friends’ on Facebook”

“You need to be on Facebook or you are missing out on so much”

“Unemployment is being caused by Immigrants – be wary of them”

“Be afraid – people hate our country and are trying to kill us for the ‘values’ we uphold”

“The way our country does things is right and just and those who die for ‘our country’ are never to be forgotten”

“Pollution is rising – we are heading for natural disasters”

“Buy the new car – you need it, don’t worry about the pollution – live for the now”

“The chocolate industry is built on the slave trade”

“You can’t change anything, so keep on eating all the chocolate you want”

“Banks are to blame for the financial crisis”

“We have bailed out the banks with taxpayers’ money, because we need them so much.”

“Really the reason for our national debt is the poor, who claim too many benefits – we should blame them because they are lazy – we won’t bail them out”

“We all need to live longer”

“We can live however we want – our healthcare is free”

“Our children aren’t doing as well as some other children around the world when we measure them against a set of very narrow targets – therefore we need more targets and more testing”

“The only way to keep our nation really safe is to keep the nuclear deterrent – in the end, this is what makes us safe”

“Our armed forces protect us by using violent force to topple regimes which do not suit our national interest. Power vacuums are now left in those nations with untold turmoil and the rise of significant extremism of which we should be even more afraid and need to silence. We will do this with more force. The use of violence make us feel safe”

 

No wonder we are so messed up. We have some very damaging and also conflicting messages coming at us, especially through the (social) media 24/7. When do we stop to ask ourselves how healthy our worldview/beliefs/mindsets are? How much of our life is driven by fear? A fear of want? A fear of lack? A fear of the ‘other’? A fear of loss? A fear of debt? A fear of attack? And how much of this feeds our individual(istic) souls of self-protectionism?

How badly we need some conversations together that enable us to challenge some of our current core beliefs. We will not find a place of health and well-being, happiness or wholeness until we do. We have aligned our lives with the Spirit of Fear and our Corporate Soul is entirely broken as a result. We must realign ourselves with the story of Love. There is so much goodness out there. Can you see it? Only love can drive out fear. Only love can heal and awaken our souls to another holistic way of being.

 

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Well Cities and How They Can Flourish

Tweet I am someone who has many dreams – I mean the night kind of dreams….very seldom would they be a night mare, but they come with incredible detail! Maybe this is because my mind is processing, maybe it’s because I’m a bit weird or maybe it’s because I’m finally quiet and the Spirit of [Continue Reading …]

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UK, You’ve Had a Heart Attack – How Are You Now?

Tweet You might want a cup of tea whilst you read this! I often see patients a week or two after they have been discharged from hospital with a Myocardial Infarction (what we often refer to as a heart attack). In this part of my home county, once someone is diagnosed with having a MI, [Continue Reading …]

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A Conversation in Response to ‘Living with Illness’

Tweet After my last blog post, I got a couple of responses from people who felt I misrepresented them. I am always happy when people come back to me in discussion. We are never changed if we cannot receive challenge or we do not really encounter ‘the other’. So here is a conversation between me [Continue Reading …]

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Living Well with Illness

Tweet In my experience with patients I find two broad categories of people who live with chronic ill health (be that back pain, a life limiting condition like MS, COPD/Asthma/Diabetes whatever). Firstly, there are people who refuse to be shaped by their illness. They remain robustly determined that the illness will live with them but [Continue Reading …]

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How Healthy Are You?

Tweet An NHS health check is available to all 40-74 year old citizens of the UK. The idea is to detect problems like hypertension, (pre)diabetes and the risk of heart disease early so that preventative measures – lifestyle changes and possibly medication – can be offered in good time.   There is plenty of debate [Continue Reading …]

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Reimagining Health

Tweet In this video blog, I tell the story of ‘The Fifth Monk’, taken from Tom Callanan’s blog (http://www.tomcallanan.com). It comes from the buddhist tradition and gives plenty of food for thought about the need for us to take the conversation about the future of healthcare ‘upstream’.   Share This:

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