Collaborating for the Future of the NHS

imgresThe NHS is a national treasure. And we all know, (because the media tells us again and again) that it is failing and our metanarrative is becoming one of crisis, inaffordablity and criticism of poor care. We want to keep it, save it and make it sustainable for the future. But there is a major problem. We simply cannot agree from our differing political positions how to make this happen. And no one perspective can be the whole truth and nothing but the truth and yet each ideology is so entrenched that rather than working creatively to find solutions together (as was called for again this week by MPs of 3 different parties), there is an ever more pathetic mud-slinging match and deepening suspicion of the ‘other’, which will do nothing to help us collaborate in creating a truly amazing, sustainable, affordable and accessible health and social care service for the generations to come.

I am about to caricature and overstate the various positions.

 

iu-1The Tories believe in a small state and the devolution of powers. They would see the NHS being broken up into regions which might be able to work more effectively in networks. They believe in order to have a strong NHS, we must have a strong economy. In order to have a strong economy, we must create wealth through private business, have low taxes, increase austerity and shrink the public sector. Ideologically they believe in a free trade market and that the NHS should be subject to the same free market forces as any other kind of business, which is why they like the TTIP. They believe that the NHS is only sustainable if run by private companies, who they think will do a more ‘efficient’ job than the current management structures – and yet they can point to shining examples of those who do it extremely well under the current operational system, like Salford Royal. They believe competition drives up excellence. They believe in personal responsibility in determining ones own health. They believe that clinicians should have more leadership in the NHS. In order to make the NHS sustainable, however, they want to invest £8 billion over 5 years whilst making efficiency savings (which are different to cuts, you understand) of £12 billion.

iu-2Labour (of which I confess to being a member) is currently more split ideologically. Some veer more to the centre ground arguing for a mixture of public and private provision of services, whereas others believe it must all remain public at any cost. There is huge suspicion of the private sector which is thought not to be compatible with delivering healthcare in a caring or compassionate way as it cares more about profit than people. Labour love targets and management structures to monitor everything that happens, which the Tories say is a waste of money. In order to fund the NHS, Labour believe in higher taxes, especially of big business and the rich.

The Greens and the SNP would also sit to the left side of healthcare provision whilst the Liberals are a bit of a pick and mix bag and partnered with the Tories in the top-down reorganisation we were promised wouldn’t happen but ideologically are probably closer to Labour! They do place more emphasis than anyone else on improving mental health services.

There are also outside forces at work – the Royal Colleges, the Research Networks and NICE all prescribing, in their own ways, the kind of healthcare that needs to be provided in order to meet standards of excellence – all of which has huge implications on the structuring and affordability of certain models of care. Then of course are the other nettles no-one is really ready to grasp. Tobacco has been tackled to some extent, but when it comes to alcohol, sugar, fast food, exercise in school and some people’s complete abuse of the system, they haven’t played ball. Nor is there a clear plan about what to do about the staffing crisis and the fact that in a free market, if you’re not competitive, some of your workers will move to areas where they get paid a lot more money for less work and less stress. And then there are the cultural issues, general chaos and shoddy systems rampant throughout the NHS and Social Care that requires an altogether different kind of leadership for them to be addressed. Oh yeah – plus it’s really expensive, but we still invest less of our GDP into our health system than most other OECD countries.

Yikes! What shall we do? Who’s right? Who’s wrong? What pearls of wisdom can we draw on from each perspective to find a way through? We probably do need devolution to the regions, so that we avoid the trap of a London-centric or South-favoured economy, whilst maintaining some accountability, especially for appropriate provision and distribution of resource with the Secretary of State. We do need to encourage more personal and social responsibility whilst ensuring we protect services for the most vulnerable and deprived populations. WE need to provide fare more resource into mental health services. We need to work with the high standards of research and be pragmatic in our approach to delivering them in reality.

The NHS, the largest of all political footballs, must somehow be de-politicised (in the sense of the old politics). Each new government with its successive and extremely costly reorganisations disrupts and destroys the excellent work done in the preceding 5 year cycle. If the NHS is ever going to work and be affordable, collaboration and not competition is the only way.

There isn’t a perfect model, but we need to keep aligning to the vision.

iuThe vision is to deliver continuously improving, high quality and compassionate health and social care to all in our communities. We really are going to have to collaborate together, taking the best of all our ideas in order to make this happen. This isn’t about winning a political argument. This is about being real and pragmatic together in finding a way through the current dross of all our fallings out for the sake of a future health and social care system that works for everybody.

There is one of the beatitudes I’ve been thinking a lot about recently: “You areiu-3 blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight.” We have to learn a new style of politics over the NHS that is about co-operation. One that operates out of a different kind of spirit. Humility, kindness and compassion are our keys in learning this new way together.

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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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