The NHS in a Mess – WHY?

It is dominating the headlines – the winter crisis in the NHS. Long waits for ambulances, huge pressures on the Emergency Departments, people dying in hospital corridors, difficulties getting in to see a GP, Nurses and Paramedics going on strike, low staff morale, a growing sense of anger in the public. Why is this happening? What’s going on? Can we really blame this on Covid-19 and Flu?

 

It’s a lot more complex than that! Our NHS is complex living system, not a machine. You can’t just tinker with a part of it and hope everything will be fixed.

 

I think there are (at least) 15 significant reasons as to why the NHS feels like it is creaking at the seams. And they all need serious attention, if we’re going to get out of this mess, live our best lives and restore it to the best health and care system in the world. Here they are:

 

  1. We have not created health and wellbeing in and with our communities. We have to positively create health. When we don’t, we find ourselves responding to crises. The shocking quality of housing in our most disadvantaged communities is just one example. We need to partner with our communities through genuine participation to build this together.
  2. We have not prevented ill health. Huge cuts to public health budgets since 2010 have led to a demise in prevention services and we have not learned well enough from places like Wigan, where innovative, community-based solutions have been found, despite austerity.
  3. We have not improved population health and not tackled inequality and inequity in our society with any sense of urgency. Yet, this is now affecting all of us due to the overwhelm on our public services. Professor Sir Michael Marmot’s work has proven this again and again.
  4. We have not valued people who work in the health and care sector, especially those who are paid poorly, for the incredibly hard work they do. It’s no wonder they are striking or leaving altogether.
  5. We are living longer than we were when the NHS was incepted, (though life expectancy for women is falling in our least affluent communities) but we have not invested in social care.
  6. We have not built the right infrastructure, with significantly less hospital beds and less doctors per head of population than most other similar countries.
  7. We have not championed the vital role that GPs and Primary Care services play in caring for the health needs of our local communities. We have not developed integrated community teams to the extent that is needed. The Fuller Report will help to change this, if the necessary investments follow.
  8. We have not integrated health policy with other key areas of public policy. For example, greater strategic thinking between the departments of health and education would lead to far better mental health outcomes for our children and young people.
  9. We simply have not invested enough money in our health system, as exposed in a £40 billion gap compared to most EU countries, every year for the last 10 years – that is 20% less per person!
  10. We have not developed fair funding formulae, which worsens inequalities and worsens overall health outcomes. We’re simply not putting the resources into the places that need them most.
  11. We have not recruited enough doctors or nurses and have failed to develop appropriate workforce plans in time for the situation we now find ourselves in.
  12. We have not cared for the wellbeing of NHS and social care staff, leading to high levels of burnout and low morale.
  13. We have not utilised the advantages of sharing patient records across the NHS in safe and timely ways. As a result, there remains much wasted time and effort and poorly joined-up care.
  14. We have not stopped perverse behaviours in the NHS by continuing to allow payment by results, rather than encouraging true, integrated system working. ICBs need much more upfront permission to do this.
  15. We have not planned adequately for winter again! We could have predicted this mess months and even years ago….but action is too little, too late….and the cost to human lives, as we are witnessing, is too great. And yes – of course, Flu and Covid-19 are playing a significant part…..

 

It’s not that difficult. It just requires compassionate, strategic, visionary, joined-up, collaborative leadership! Thankfully, across many levels of the NHS and Local Government there is plenty of this. Simply turn the negatives around. In the end it’s a question of values and who and what we value.

 

 

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How Does Change Happen?

How does change happen? This has become an incredibly important question to me over the last few years, and I am still on a big learning journey in discovering some answers. There is so much that needs to change – so much that is currently going on in our communities that simply doesn’t work for people. So I keep asking – how does change happen?

 

I recently read a book called ‘The Moral Imagination’ by the great peace-builder and activist, John Paul Lederach. In it, he talks about the concept of ‘critical yeast’. Yeast is itself changed in a new environment (surrounded by flour) and then begins to bring about phenomenal change around it. You don’t continue to see the yeast, but you surely get to see it’s effect!

 

For me, change begins with listening, and by that I mean deep, generative listening to those who we could think of as ‘critical yeast’. The kind of listening in which you can no longer continue to see things the way you did previously. As you listen in this way and find your self changed, you can longer continue with things as they are – you realise that things around you need to change also.

 

It’s one of the reasons why I am absolutely committed to putting myself into uncomfortable surroundings or situations which challenge my neatly held world views and beliefs. I try and make sure I take the lanyard off my neck, step out of the clinical settings I know and the board rooms I sit in and spend time in and with the communities we serve. I really believe it is vital for all leaders, especially those in senior positions to regularly take time away from the boardroom and really sit with the communities they are paid to serve. If you don’t have your finger on the pulse of the pain people are experiencing, then it’s all too easy to make decisions on behalf of them which utterly lack compassion or kindness.

 

So, together with my good friend, Yak Patel, who is the CEO of the Lancaster CVFS (Community Voluntary Faith Sector) and a man of real humility who holds our communities in his heart, we went to be with some people doing amazing things across our district. Yak is great at holding me to account and ensuring that I put my money where my mouth is!

 

We started on The Ridge, the largest council estate in Lancaster. There we spent time with Lisa, who we know through ‘the art of connecting communities’. She runs the community centre, and we wanted to listen to the experiences of people living on The Ridge and understand some of what they are facing. Simple things, like a cut on their bus service (as timetables massively favour the University) is leaving people isolated and cut-off, especially elderly citizens at weekends.

 

I asked Lisa what she thought about the growing rhetoric that the problems communities like ‘The Ridge’ are facing are not to do with ‘resources’ – she rolled her eyes and retorted – “easy for people to say that, but over the summer, I couldn’t pay myself a salary for 2 months, so that I could ensure that the youth provision needed through the holidays could actually run – the funding for those kind of activities has been cut so much, it’s a joke….” Lisa, like so many other big-hearted and socially-conscious community workers, had to work 80-90 hours a week, holding down a second job, simply to be able to pay her own bills – similar to what happened at Christmas, when she worked long hours to make sure that 75 children on the estate actually had something to eat and a present to open on Christmas Day. People of good heart are feeling overwhelmed, unsupported and burnt out. I asked Lisa what she would love to happen – she wants to bring the community together, to talk about what’s strong, not what’s wrong, ask the community what it is they actually want and need, rather than assuming the providers of public services somehow magically know (!) and focus on what The Ridge could become – for the community, by the community.

 

On The Marsh, we met Debz. Debz also came to ‘the art of connecting communities’ last year. You might describe Debz as a ‘salt of the earth’ person. Down to earth, she has seen it all. I asked her what the biggest problem is for her community…..”drugs…..the place is overrun with drugs – and people are on the ropes”. The food club was happening, thanks to fareshare, when we arrived (although huge trays of strawberries were already completely mouldy)….and there were queues down the street….she shared with us some of the complexities involved for young people and the situations they find themselves in – multi-generational trauma….but what she struggles with most is that those who are supposed to care, don’t seem to want to understand. She told us of difficult encounters with the local GPs, the local hospital, social services (one family had had over 24 social workers – what’s the point in that, she asks?), police, schools and city council….although she has noticed some attitudes begin to change (perhaps because of the poverty truth commission).

 

She feels that people on ‘The Marsh’ are judged, looked down on and it’s reputation is very hard to break. But she also knows that people who live there want things to change and they want to be part of the change. That can be really tough, with the threat of violence and the very real involvement of gangs from Liverpool and Manchester, bringing intimidation. “Why would people not do drugs and get involved in selling them? It pays better than any work available”, she shrugs.  She believes the community can find some more hopeful dreams and she talks about the difference a new church in the community centre are making (a conglomeration of a few different congregations working together)….She wants to bring the community together to talk about what they want to see change, but especially how they can be part of that change….however, she doesn’t think it can happen through some kind of new found motivation alone – it’s going to take real investment. She tells me that if we want to stop seeing men dying in their 20s, from drugs, violence and suicide – we need to think altogether differently about how we work together with communities. Yak nods in agreement – he used to have Debz’s job, before he became CEO of the CVS. He tells me how many funerals of young men he has been to from this community. I feel deeply sad.

 

Then we’re on to Poulton (which has the worst health outcomes in North Lancashire), to meet our friend Joanne, who runs Home Start for Lancaster and Morecambe. What an amazing lady! And such a great charity! We sit with Joanne and one of her trustees, Sheila (who used to work in children’s services at Lancashire County Council, before she saw the decimation of her team and the unacceptable levels of stress she and her team were having to work under, which she deemed to be totally unsafe). The work they are doing for young families is extraordinary. Most of their referrals come from Health Visitors, but they are now full, and simply can’t take any more referrals unless more volunteers arrive. What I love about Joanne and her team is the collaborative-coaching approach they take. As they have worked alongside families, and discovered what they want and need, they have seen co-produced groups around issues like Domestic Violence and Autism support. What Joanne is most proud of is that they have created a culture in which you can walk into a room and no one knows who is a ‘client’, who is a volunteer and who is a member of staff – brilliant! “A community of mutuality” – she beams! Humility is the order of the day and it leads to real relationships that bring real change. As services have been cut and fragmented, increasing pressure has fallen onto the charity sector to hold things together – but resources have not followed. Despite great connections across the sector, the pressures are mounting, the cracks are showing and the risks are increasing.

 

I have no idea how much money Lisa, Debz and Joanne must be saving the public services every year, in terms of health and social care….but I do believe we could be making some far better and wiser investments with the ‘public purse’. We should be putting a whole lot more faith in community centres and workers, like them. If we do so, we will find it much easier to tackle deep-seated health and social ineqaulities right in the heart of our communities, taking an asset-based approach, being brave enough to redesign around relationships rather than transactions (as my good friend Hilary Cottam says in Radical Help) and find that communities really do want to be a part of transforming their own futures. Just like in Wigan, there needs to be a New Deal between communities and the public services to ensure that there is mutual vision and accountability for the resources that are available. What are we brave enough to stop doing, so that we can learn to do what is altogether better? Are we able to change? Not if we remain in our silos and ivory towers and continue to tell ourselves the same old stories. But might we dare to step outside the fortresses of what we know and learn to deeply listen? If we can do so, we cannot help but be changed….and as we begin to change….well…..then change begins to happen!

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Never Let a Good Crisis Go to Waste

Tweet So, the NHS is in another winter crisis. The Oxford English Dictionary defines a crisis  as: 1 A time of intense difficulty or danger. ‘the current economic crisis’ Mass noun ‘the monarchy was in crisis’ 1.1 A time when a difficult or important decision must be made. As modifier ‘the situation has reached crisis point’ [Continue Reading …]

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Don’t Mind The Gap – Address It!

Tweet So, here it is in black and white: the health gap between the north and south is getting wider, and in fact it is now the worst it has been in over 50 years!   https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/aug/08/alarming-rise-in-early-deaths-of-young-adults-in-the-north-of-england-study?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/pa/article-4770286/Death-records-growing-north-south-divide-study-finds.html?ito=email_share_article-top   I’ve blogged about this on here before, but the figures from this latest study are utterly stark: [Continue Reading …]

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Just to be Clear – This is a Social Justice Issue

Tweet Following on from my blog earlier this week, I want to be really clear in what I am saying! The funding formula used in health and social care is weighted towards the wealthy and the well…therefore the north is worse off compared to the south… We are already at a major deficit in terms of health outcomes, [Continue Reading …]

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Here we go round the NHS Mulberry Bush!

Tweet One of my favourite songs as a 5 year old was ‘Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush’. I’ve been involved with the NHS for 17 years now and every winter, we do this same dance around Emergency Departments and the total mess that surrounds hospital admissions, discharges and an ever growing list of [Continue Reading …]

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