The King’s Fund have just released an excellent video to help explain how the NHS works and some of the complex things going on in it at the moment. It doesn’t shy away from making it crystal clear who is in charge of the money, nor the difficulties we’re facing in staffing and resource allocation. Have a watch of it and then keep reading!
What is particularly important to understand, especially where we are learning to work in new ways together, like here in Morecambe Bay, is just how inconsistent and incongruent the messages are that we receive from the leadership structures of the NHS.
So, here in the Bay, we are forming an Accountable Care System, which brings together different health & social care commissioners and providers to work more effectively together. We are forming great relationships, breaking down walls and barriers to work together, whilst tackling significant budget issues as we try and ensure that we deliver care in the most excellent, safe and sustainable way for our population (whom we are trying to include fully in the co-design of the services we provide).
One might think, as we are being actively encouraged to reorganise ourselves in this way, that the Department of Health, NHS England, NHS Improvement and the CQC would all be pulling together to support these changes. One might presume that they would ensure the various contracts and ways of paying and assessing us would enable us to do this important work – the opposite is in fact the case!
On the one hand we are encouraged to ensure we work more efficiently and “cut the waste” out of our system, but when we do so, the contracts in place are working against us!! we literally being told to work one way and then penalised if we do! It is an entirely schizophrenic existence and creates an extraordinary amount of wasted time and energy.
I’m not exactly sure what it is that is causing the disconnect between the different regulatory bodies. However, as they require of us a new collaborative way of working that ensures greater efficiency and improved models of care…..perhaps it could be better modelled and enabled by those in the “centre”. This would give the entire reorganization a great deal more integrity. Cultural and behavioural change is talked about a great deal and we are enacting it despite the perverse drivers working against us. I wonder if the same is true at HQ, Elephant and Castle. This mixed messaging needs to stop and those of us leading systems, working with great complexity, need to be given the permission, support, and enablers to really flourish.
