Category: Worldview

We Have a Power Problem!

NHS – we have a problem! This blog forms a hiatus in the middle of a 4 blog mini-series about what I call the four rings of leadership (in the context of healthcare). I have been musing on some statements made at the IHI conference in London, Quality 2017, and before I go any further, I want to take a pause to reflect on the notion of power. Helen Bevan says that the number one issue facing our health care system is the issue of power. I would suggest that unless we seriously reflect on power and how it manifests itself in our systems and in us as individuals, then we will never be able to co-create health and well-being in our society.

 

In my last blog, I mentioned an excellent talk that I heard Derek Feeley of IHI and Jason Leitch, the CMO of Scotland, give together about our need to “cede” power, if we are to build safe, high quality, economically sustainable health systems. They contend that we need to move from keeping power, to sharing power and then ceding power. To cede power, means to transfer/surrender/concede/allow or yield power to others. I do believe this is correct. I believe that true leadership is absolutely about being able to ’empty out’ positions or seats of power, so that all are empowered to effect positive change and build a society of positive peace. However, my contention is this: ceding power is not helpful unless we first deal with the very nature of power. Once we have dealt with its very substance can we truly cede it through our organisations and systems to bring increased well-being for all.

 

I have talked many times over the dinner table with my great friends Roger and Sue Mitchell about the nature of sovereignty and power. Sovereignty is a dominant theme within our political discourse at the moment, at a national and international level. It is worth reflecting that sovereignty (the right to self-govern) is utterly intertwined with our understanding of power, and we need to pull the two apart if we are ever to cede the kind of power that can transform the future. If we do not recognise (have a full awareness/deeply know) this, we will continue to inadvertently create hierarchical dominance and systems that become the antithesis of what they are created to be.

 

 

We see the issue of sovereign power at work every day in the NHS. We see it in terms of power edicts from on high, without understanding the local context or issues worked through in a relational way. We see it in the way these edicts are then outworked through leadership and management styles, which are very top-down and hierarchical in nature, eating up people like bread in the process – what Foucault calls “Biopower”. We see it in the way wards are managed and in the way GP surgeries are run. Sovereign power says “I’m in charge around here” and “we’re going to do things my way”. We see it in individuals who choose to practice autonomously without thinking about the wider implications on the system, prescribing however they would like to, without thinking about the cost implications. We see it in the attitude of some patients, when it becomes about “my rights” with an unbearable or unaffordable pressure put onto the system. If we multiply sovereign power, we simply end up with lots of  kings and queens who defend their own castle, creating more barriers, walls and division in the process. Sovereign power is defunct and dangerous and it is this which is currently destroying our ecosystems and wider society. The “I did it my way” approach is rooted in self preservation and ambition and does nothing to help us build health and well-being in society. Sovereign power stands in the way the very social movements we need to see, because Sovereign power is based on fear.

 

Sovereign power has its roots in certain streams of theology and philosophy which have in turn laid the foundation for a way of doing politics and economics based on the supremacy of the state and within that the individual. However, the damaging effects of this are seen on our environment and on community, with utterly staggering levels of inequality, injustice and damage to the world in which we live.

 

If we are to truly cede a power that is effectual in changing the world, then it is not enough to simply reconfigure (rearrange) it, or reconstitute it ( i.e. give it a new structure/share it). First of all, we must revoke it! In other words, we must look ‘Sovereign power’ straight in the eyes and reject it, cancelling it’s toxic effects on our own selves and on that of others. We must change our minds about it and embrace instead a wholly different kind of power. Sovereign power has not changed the world for the better so far, and I hold no hope of it doing so in the future. No, we don’t need Sovereign power and we certainly don’t want to cede it. Instead, we need kenotic power. Kenotic power is based in self-giving, others empowering love (Thomas Jay Oord). It empowers others, not to live like mini-dictators, but to also dance to a very different beat.

 

I used to play the card game bridge, with my Grandpa (he was an amazing man, who invented Fairy Liquid!). In bridge, to revoke something is to fail to follow suit, despite being able to do so. Kenotic power refuses to play the game of Sovereign power. It embraces an entirely different approach. And as many through the ages have found, this kind of power is truly costly, and can even cost you your career or life; but it is the only kind of power that truly changes the world for good. Jesus, Rosa Parks, Emmeline Pankhurst, Gandhi, MLK, Malala Yousafzai, Nelson Mandela, Florence Nightingale and Mother Theresa are just some, who have embraced this ‘self-giving, others empowering love-based power.’ This is the kind of power we need now. We need it in healthcare and in every other part of our society.

 

Kenotic power is vulnerable but it is not about being a door mat. It is like a beautiful martial art, in which we can say “I won’t fight you and you can’t knock me down, unless I let you” In other words, we lay down our rights and power freely, they are not taken from us by force. So, even when energetic attacks are launched against us, this kind of power allows us to move out of the way, allow the attack to pass through and then to come along side the person and help them see another point of view. Switching to this kind of power is far more creative, less combative and far more fruitful in creating a way ahead full of possibilities without the need for making enemies in the process. We must challenge the deep structural belief that our political and economic systems must be built on and can only be held together by Sovereign power. What if we developed systems based on love, trust, joy and kindness, aiming for the peace and wellbeing of all (including the environment?) – what might such a health system be like? It will take a social movement for us to get this shift, and as I wrote in my previous blog: You might call this a re-humanisation of our systems based on love, trust and the hope of a positive peace for all. But this social movement is not aiming for some kind of hippy experience in which we are all sat round camp fires, singing kum-ba-yah! This social movement is looking to cause our communities to flourish with a sense of health and wellbeing, to have a health and social care movement that is safe, sustainable, socially just and truly excellent, serving the needs of the wider community to grow stronger with individuals learning, growing and developing in their capacity to live well.

 

 

I agree wholeheartedly that the most important role of leaders is to cede their power, so that all can truly flourish, where there is a far greater sense of cooperative and collaborative agency within our (health) systems. But if we do not examine the nature of this power, we will only perpetuate our problems.

 
Martin Luther-King said these famous words – they are seriously worthy of our reflection:

 

“Power without love is reckless and abusive and love without power is sentimental and anaemic. Power at its best is love implementing justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love.”

 

 

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Social Movements and the Future of Healthcare


As the crisis in the Western World deepens, and the growing reality sets in that business as usual simply can no longer continue nor solve our problems, our systems must change the way they view, deal with and hold onto power. The NHS is no exception. If we want a health and social care system that is of the highest quality, safe, sustainable and economically viable for the future, we need to understand the power of social movements, both within our systems and through the wider society. This is something we are really committed to in Morecambe Bay and so it was with great delight that I listened to the excellent Helen Bevan, talk about just how vital social movements are for the NHS and healthcare, worldwide at the recent IHI conference in London, Quality 2017. This blog will be an amalgamation of what Helen shared and my own thoughts about our early experiences with social movements.

 

 

A social movement in health and social care involves us all learning to connect, collaborate, cooperate, cocreate and coproduce at a level we have never done so, until now. But our circumstances are forcing us to reconsider the ways in which we work. We need the creative substance that is within our teams to be heard and harnessed so that we cut our waste and work more effectively together. The issues we face, need facing by us all, together; not by some board in an isolated room, making decisions based on diktats from on high, on behalf of us all.  But even this will not be enough. Those of us stuck in the system have become too homogenized in our thinking for us to do this exclusively from within. We need our citizens to help us re-imagine what it means for us to be healthy and well. We must stop designing things for our communities or doing things to them, instead we must design and do things with them. We must analyse, create and enact together and to do this, we must learn to solve the issues of power.

 

Helen Bevan, with her background in social science, demonstrates the great debate about the interplay between our organisational structures (rules) and agency (freedom) when it comes to effecting change. Where does the “permission” come from to enact the change we need to see? Is it externally generated by those in positions of power, or is it internally generated by a personal motivation? Our experience in Carnforth and Morecambe in community conversations has been a bit of both. There are many people of incredible heart and goodness, waiting to do something new and good that will positively affect the health and wellbeing of society, but are perhaps waiting for that sense of community backing, support, encouragement or indeed permission. With a bit of coaching or spurring on, we have seen some amazing initiatives begin that are bringing transformational work into our area and causing us all think differently. We need both individual agency AND corporate agency. Helen describes individual agency as being when people get more power and control in their lives – we see this in patient activation, shared-decision making and self-care – a greater sense of autonomy and responsibility. Collective agency, on the other hand, is where we see people act together, united by a common cause, harnessing the power and influence of the group whilst building mutual trust.

 

 

We have seen this used powerfully, in just one example by our maternity liaison service committee, who together have challenged our system to think more carefully about how we communicate to women, especially at key or stressful moments of their obstetric care. These stories are now a compulsory part of training for all who work in our maternity service and have significantly improved both our skill mix and ability to provide excellent care.
What is absolutely vital to understand is that we do not become transformed alone. We are transformed when we are in relationship with others (Hahrie Han). The problem is that we don’t really encounter the “other” enough to be changed. However,  when we let go of the kind of power that is held by the few, pushes others down, uses command and control, that is closed and transactional, and instead embrace a power that is held by the many, shared, open and relational, then we can begin to see the change we need (Hirschman and Ganz).

David Holzmer says that we are witnessing the collapse of expertise and the rise of collaborative sense-making. I would suggest that this has been going on for some time, but our systems have been incredibly slow at catching onto the change around us.

 

Now, what is hugely encouraging is this: research by Kollectif shows that you only need 3% of people in an organisation/society to drive the conversations with 90% of other people. In other words, you don’t have to get everyone on board from the word go. You find your passionate people with a sense of agency, infect them with the virus and watch it spread. These people need to be a mixture of ‘lone wolves’, mobilisers and organisers. Lone wolves are people who have been trying to help change happen for a long time but can sometimes feel like an annoyance to the system, so they are given tokenistic positions, patted on the head and patronised into exhaustion. Mobilisers build power by calling large numbers of people to contribute, engage in change and take action. Organisers build power by growing leaders in a distributed network, building a community and protecting its strength. We need all of them, though mobilisers and organisers will be the most effective in creating agency and bringing about lasting change  (Hahrie Han).

Joe Simpson says that ” great social movements get their energy by growing a distributed leadership.” The cult of celebrity can be powerful, but is not effective. The beautiful thing about a social movement is that is depends not on money, materials and technology but on relationships, commitment and community, and as the movement grows, these resources increase, rather than diminish. The problem, as Don Berwick puts it, is that leaders in position of strategic influence, are simply not seeing the resources available to the biggest problems we are facing.

 

Jason Leitch and Derek Feeley have powerfully shown that performance management (keeping the power), based on targets, sanctions and inspections can only get us so far. Quality improvement (sharing the power) gets us a little further, but mobilising social action, or co-production (ceding power) has a far greater potential to bring lasting change and far better outcomes for all.

 

So, how do we catalyze a social movement and how would we know if the movement was being “successful”? Well, our experience in Morecambe Bay is that you start with the 3%. You start with those who are drawn to the conversation, who recognise the need for change and who want to be part of it. You start with transparency, with openness, honesty and vulnerability about the mess we find ourselves in and the truth that we no longer have what it takes to solve the problem. And you start with really good questions and then deeply listen to the conversation which is emerging so that we ourselves are changed and can therefore be part of the emergence of something new, which operates on an entirely different kind of power.

You might call this a re-humanisation of our systems based on love, trust and the hope of a positive peace for all. But this social movement is not aiming for some kind of hippy experience in which we are all sat round camp fires, singing kum-ba-yah! This social movement is looking to cause our communities to flourish with a sense of health and wellbeing, to have a health and social care movement that is safe, sustainable, socially just and truly excellent, serving the needs of the wider community to grow stronger with individuals learning, growing and developing in their capacity to live well. That is what we must measure!
And so we need disruptive co-creation, which breaks through the top-town/bottom-up approach and causes us to see and hear like we have never done before. It is hugely exciting and enables managers to stop feeling like they have to extract as much performance as possible from the system, flogging the workforce, blocking change and innovation and inadvertently driving down the quality of care in the process.

The invitation is instead to become part of the change that we all long for. If we’re going to have an NHS in the future, we have to give it back to the people and work with them. In order to do this, we have to deal with and change our relationship with the very notion of power – something I will turn my attention to on the next blog!

 

 

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Creating a Culture of Joy in the NHS

A Culture of Joy is the biggest determinant of safe and high quality healthcare! That is such a phenomenal statement that it is worth reading over and over again, making it into a poster, sticking it on your wall and meditating on it morning and night. It feels to be simultaneously absolutely true and somehow beyond belief. I’ve previously blogged here about the need for a culture of kindness in the NHS, and I hold to that – kindness certainly doesn’t exclude joy (!), but a Culture of Joy….. I don’t know, in a day in which 50% of our staff admit to feeling burnt out, can we honestly say we have developed this throughout our health system in the UK? So, what does it take to build this? How do we have a joyful workplace? If it is really the single largest factor affecting patient safety, which research from The Mayo Clinic, The IHI and The Quality Forum tell us it is, then we better sit up, pay attention and do something about it!

 

There are 3 key ingredients to creating a culture of Joy.  The first (and this is in no sense a hierarchical order!) is leadership, the second is how
teams actually function together and the third is personal responsibility. You will see the words incorporated from the ‘culture circle’ in bold!

 

Good Leadership: Here’s a fascinating fact, I learnt from Stephen Swensen, of The Mayo Clinic – The bigger the signature of a CEO, the worse the outcomes for patients, staff and the finances of the organisation!! CEOs are responsible for setting the structures in place that allow healthy cultures to develop. Leaders create a culture of joy by having humility and developing 5 key behaviours:

 

  1. Appreciation – good leaders build joy in their teams by saying ‘Thank You’ – it is one of the things the team at my surgery consistently tells us, as partners. Of course we are grateful, but we don’t say it enough. Every member of a team knowing that they have value is so vital. I remember, as a house officer on a medical ward watching a lady called Jean, cleaning the ward and saying hello to all the patients. I went up to her and said, “Jean, I just want to thank you for everything you do on this ward, every day. The way you keep this place clean helps fight off infections and keeps people well; and the smile and kindness you bring is really comforting to people who are scared or hurting.” To my great surprise, she burst out crying. I asked her what was wrong and she told me that she had worked on this ward for 25 years and no-one had ever said ‘Thank You’ to her. My favourite hashtag on twitter is trybeinggrateful – it costs so little.
  2. Transparency – good leaders communicate openly with their teams. They don’t do ‘special huddles’ in which they invite a few ‘high level’ people to know their secrets. No. They communicate with honesty and openness and this builds trust. And with trust they are able to negotiate difficult situations and requests of their teams, because there is a belief that everyone is in it together.
  3. Ideas – They look to their teams for ideas. One of the things I loved learning about recently is that the CEO of Toyota in Derby, deliberately does not park his car in the special ‘CEO parking space’ right next to the building. Instead, he parks it at the far end of the factory, so that the walk to his office takes him through every department, (a good 30 minutes of his time), so he he can say “hi” to his staff, connect with them and ensure that he is hearing about their ideas for innovation and improvement. Toyota takes 2.5 million suggestions from its staff every year. This simply doesn’t happen enough in the NHS, and I wonder how many CEOs take time at the start of the day, to walk the corridors, listen to patient stories, understand the pressures in the ED, hear the heartbeat of the wards and get a sense of the ideas brewing in some of the most compassionate, caring and intelligent staff of any organisation in the UK. If we are to transform the NHS into a system that is truly safe, sustainable and excellent, we must listen more to the ideas of our teams and in doing so, we will cut waste, undo the reems of red tape and instead find we are working far more effectively and efficiently. To embed this into the culture, there must be psychological safety – that means that no question is too stupid, no idea is too dumb and it is safe to bring to attention concerns a person may have, without a fear of retribution. One great question for leaders to ask is, “what are the pebbles in your shoes?’ – in other words, what matters to you? Or what are the barriers for you here? What’s getting in the way? Great CEOs do not have great answers, they are willing to work with complexity and have great questions!
  4. Career Mentorship – every person needs to be able to keep learning and develop in their role. We all need mentors or coaches at different stages in our careers, and ensuring these structures are in place to support staff as the complexity and pressure we deal with increase, is vital in building joy. People who are developing in their role are naturally safer in their role.
  5. Inclusiveness – To a good leader, it doesn’t matter who you are, what you look like, what you believe, what your sexual orientation or status might be. You need to know that you are welcome and you are loved just as you are. Inclusive teams that do not scapegoat, do not sideline and do not bully are joyful teams. Joyful teams celebrate difference and thrive off it.

 

Joyful Teams:  It’s really important to understand that joy does not mean false happiness. It does not mean that we walk around with fake smiles on our faces all the time and pretend that everything is ok. Joy is much deeper than that. We deal with very sad and difficult things in our workplaces every single day. We break bad news, we hold people as they take their final breaths, we watch people make terrible life choices, we see and carry the hurt of those who suffer loss and each of us has our own burdens we carry from the lives we live outside of work. Joyful teams do not pretend like that stuff isn’t happening every day – quite the opposite. Joyful teams develop three key qualities:

  1. Camaraderie. The high school musical song – ‘We’re all in this together’ is a great theme tune for NHS teams. People need to know that they belong, that they are loved and that people care about them. On good days, we celebrate together, on bad days, we pull together. Joyful teams develop encouragement, support and kindness in how they treat each other.
  2. Purpose. Joyful teams have a real sense of shared vision and purpose. They know what they are there to do and each person knows that they are valued in that team. The posh term for this is a sense of corporate agency. This is our job to do, we are responsible for what happens here and we want to do our work with excellence. 
  3. Trust. It is really important that individuals feel trusted to do their job without feeling like they are always being watched or criticised or that they have to give an account for every action. When people feel trusted, they actually work more effectively and produce better outcomes.

 

Personal Responsibility: in order to create a culture of joy, it is not just the responsibility of the CEO or team leader, nor the atmosphere created by the team as a whole – we each have a responsibility to steward and hold to this culture. And that means taking care of our own needs. We need to be active, eat well, take notice, be mindful, sleep well, forgive those who hurt us and have good friendships. Making sure that we ‘host ourselves’ well, ensures that we play our part in building the culture of joy that is so vital to the providing care that is of the highest quality and safety. There is a personal accountability to ourselves and to those we work with to ensure this is so. There is also personal agency that rises to the challenge that each one of us can set a new trend and make a significant difference to the culture in which we work.

 

In the midst of all we are currently facing in the NHS, for the sake of our patients and their families, it is vital that we build cultures of joy now and cultivate them for the future.

 

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The Four Rings of Leadership in Healthcare

I went to London a couple of weeks ago for the IHI (Institute for Health Innovation) conference in London – Quality Forum 2017. The focus was on Quality and Safety in Healthcare, with some hugely surprising and refreshing perspectives from around the world. It was absolutely great and I learnt loads. I’ve tried to distill my learning from the time into a single sheet diagram. My hope, over the next few blogs is to unpack this a bit more, but here is a very brief summary:

 

If we want to have excellent, safe and financially sustainable health systems, we need four key ingredients, with the patient and their family at the heart/centre. The most important factor in providing safe and high quality care is a CULTURE OF JOY! I love this. I love that an institute based in Harvard, with research from across the world, is able to say this so clearly. If we have happy teams, we provide the best care. It’s simple! A culture of joy has three key elements: firstly the team needs to have a sense of camaraderie (we’re in this together and we love each other and take care of each other), secondly the team needs a sense of purpose and thirdly the members of the team need to feel trusted to do their jobs.

 

Alongside this culture of joy, there needs to be a SOCIAL MOVEMENT, both within the staff and in the wider society. A social movement relies on structures in which power is ceded and personal and corporate agency (responsibility and action) can flourish. There also needs to be a sense of CONTINUOUS LEARNING, in which all partake, every voice matters and no question is too stupid. In Toyota the staff make over 2.5 million suggestions each year! No wonder they are continually improving. And fourthly, there needs to be an agreed focus on QUALITY AND SAFETY, which entails several aspects.

 

All of this depends on a new kind of leadership that is first of all humble, able to cede power and deal with significant complexity and ‘not knowing’. When financial constraints are tight, or huge savings have to be made, it can be tempting to start rationing and cut services deeply. This may balance the books, temporarily, but it destroys every thing you are trying to build, demoralises staff, ruins your culture and breaks trust with those you are trying to serve. The challenge is to begin to hold our nerve in the midst of extreme pressure and do what we know is right, backed by the best evidence available to us – and this, believe it or not, actually makes us financially sustainable. I am going to really enjoy unpacking this more and revisiting my learning over the next few blogs, but the above should hopefully fuel some thinking in the mean time.

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Turning To Each Other

Here are some excerpts from a speech I gave recently at Lancaster City Hall about how in a time of crisis, we can either turn on each other, or turn to each other (my friend Mike Love gave me that line!). When we turn to each other, unimagined possibilities become the fuel of hope for a better future for us all. I broke the 20 minute speech into just over 6 minutes – sorry if it’s a bit clunky, but I hope you get the gist!

 

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What Every Northerner Should Know About the North/South Health Gap

Everybody knows about the Gender Pay Gap – it’s well publicised and very much in the public domain for discussion – and too right! – How is this even still an issue? It it is quite simply wrong that women should earn less than men, any time, any place, end of discussion.

 

Well the same applies to the North-South Health Gap. What I find particularly irksome about this issue, is that people tend to roll their eyes and say that it’s all playing politics. No! No it isn’t. This is not about politics. This is about Social Justice!

 

It has been well documented that for over 40 years, the health of the people of the North of England has been significantly worse than that of people in the South and our life expectancy is worse. It is a complex issue and is highly linked to deprivation and poor housing conditions in the urban areas. The gap was narrowed during the early part of this century, but the health reforms made to the NHS have seen massive cuts to public health and social care budgets, disproportionately affecting the North. To make matters worse, the funding formula that is used by the Department of Health to determine how and where money should be spent, deliberately favours the rich and the well and and that means that head for head of population, the North does considerably worse than the South in terms of how much resource is made available. This is even true of how many staff are given proportionally to the North compared to the South. This is just ludicrous and is simply not fair. How can it make any sense at all to spend more money in areas where the population is more healthy and people have a significantly better overall life expectancy already? Are we to believe that Southerners are more important than Northerners, just as the pay gap would imply that men are more important than women?

 

The savings being asked of the Northern STPs (Sustainability and Transformation Plans) at a time in which we are already struggling with the huge cuts previously mentioned, and starting from a significant deficit in terms of our health outcomes, is meaning that the health and wellbeing of the people of the North will suffer further. I am not suggesting that we can not work more efficiently and collaboratively within the public services, nor am I suggesting that the people of the North do not need to take greater responsibility for our own health (although it is well known, that when you are more deprived, you are less likely to have the mental wellbeing to make positive choices about your own health). What I am saying is this: whatever the budget allocations may be; let them be fair!

 

Yes, it is time for us to tackle the health problems across the North, and we will do so together as the people. Maybe we don’t have carte blanche any more and have to reassess what we think might be available in terms of health care provision. But what we would like is to be able to make this journey by starting on a basis of equality with the South. No more North-South divide. No more unfair funding calculations. No more political games. Social-Health Justice for all, now.

 

For further information, you can read:

https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/article/37/1/34/1556643/Grim-up-North-or-Northern-grit-Recessions-and-the

https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/sites/files/kf/field/field_publication_file/inequalities-in-life-expectancy-kings-fund-aug15.pdf#page2

http://councilportal.cumbria.gov.uk/documents/s50047/STP%20April%20submission%20for%20Lancashire%20and%20South%20Cumbria.pdf?nobdr=2

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How do You Solve a Problem Like………..£50,000,000?!!

On Friday night, watching comic relief, I got quite excited as the total neared £50 million – I turned to my lovely wife and said – ha – there now, we can plug the gap in our local health economy for next year! (Obviously the money is desperately needed in many situations across the UK and Africa, so I wasn’t being flippant), but – that’s the target we’ve been set by the government in Morecambe Bay – save £50 million pounds – one tenth of our budget in 1 year!! Sure thing! The public just love to hear about cuts! Comic relief – you have to laugh, or you’d cry……..but the situation isn’t really very funny and yet, if we don’t head into the fray with some joy and hope in our hearts, we will become wearied very quickly.

 

Let me frame this problem by stating something we must then put to one side. Professor Don Berwick, health advisor to Barack Obama, and president of the IHI (Institute for Health Innovation at Harvard – a clever man by all accounts) recently stated very clearly to the Department of Health that it is quite simply not possibly to continue having a National Health Service run on only 8% of GDP (the lowest spend on healthcare of almost any OECD nation). We must also put to one side the recent publication by the King’s Fund, the independent think tank, that states quite clearly that the government are not investing anywhere near what they promised they would  in the NHS. It also demonstrates that the NHS is not a bottomless pit, as some of the media would have us believe. Read it in more depth here:

(https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/topics/productivity-and-finance/nhs-myth-busters)

 

We know we need more funding. We know there is much negativity in the press about the crisis we are facing, we know about the recruitment issues and we know about the low morale of staff and high strain on the service.

 

Having put all of that to one side and accepting that the NHS remains a political football, currently being given a good kicking, we do need to have a sensible conversation. Whether we like it or not, as we look into the future, it is unsustainable for the health and social care system to have to allocate 1/5th of its budget as a direct result of our lifestyles, 1/10th of its budget on diabetes (the vast majority relating to type II, which is hugely preventable and reversible) or to double pay for beds in nursing homes and hospitals because of unnecessary admissions. So…..what are we to do? Simon Stevens, the head of the NHS will, this week give a major speech on the direction the health service and the progress of the Sustainability and Transformation Plans (STPs), of which there are 44 across England – they have little chance of success if we do not believe that we are all in this together.

 

It truly involves all of us! We, the people, together must face this problem head on. We do not have to turn on each other in a time of crisis, we can turn to each other and use our collective wisdom and gifts to find a way through. This does not have to mean doom and gloom. It could mean better community cohesion, a more positive way of working together across the system, organisations working collaboratively in a way that makes more sense for those who need help and all of us taking a bit more responsibility for our own health and wellbeing. We must learn to rebuild the very fabric of society, based on love and trust, de-professionalise the public and civic space (as per Cormac Russell) and reconnect as human beings who care for each other and want to have systems that serve our needs. This will be made possible through multiple, small and large conversations in which we take time to ask some really deep and important questions, holding the space through the process of frustration as we wrestle together for solutions that we can all work with.We don’t leave our brains and expertise at the door, but nor do we behave in archaic hierarchical ways or hide behind our name badges and lanyards.  Here in Morecambe Bay we have started this very process, using a set of values from ‘the art of hosting and harvesting conversations that matter’ – here is a link to one of our conversations in Morecambe:

http://aohhealthandwellbeingmorecombe.weebly.com

 

Over the next two years, our team will be working with communities right around this Bay to ask and explore some important questions, such as these:

 

  1. How do we begin well? Put another way – How do we enable our children to have the very best start in life? (This may include areas like breast feeding, bonding, parenting, healthy food, exercise and the massive public health issue that is child abuse – or adverse childhood experiences, or maybe issues like indoor vs outdoor learning, music, arts, sports, targets, sex, screen time, social media etc) – what are we going to do about this as a society?
  2. How do we live well? How do we face some of the issues we are now having to tackle? How do we square up to some of the nonsensical adverts, learn to laugh at them, rather than be sucked in by them and change the message?! How do we reconnect, heal our divides and learn to live well alongside each other? How do we heal our past traumas that have such a huge impact on our health and wellbeing now? How might we build the kind of economy that cares about people and the planet? How might we live in an altogether more healthy way? How do we become less dependent on a medical model to fix our problems and take a more holistic view of what it means to be well?
  3. How do we work well? How do we create work that cares for the future and sustainability of the planet? How do we work in ways that are beneficial to our health and by doing so actually help us to be more effective and efficient? How do we create a culture of kindness and compassion in our workplaces?
  4. How do we age well? How do face retirement, without it becoming  only a selection of cruises and alcohol (biggest problem drinking now in women over 60)? How do we connect three generations back to each other and enjoy life more fully together? How do we live well with increasing frailty and health issues? How do we understand the conditions we live with and learn how to manage them ourselves (self-care) as effectively as possible? How do we create the kind of social care that is compassionate, caring and serves to create community?
  5. How do we die with dignity? We must ask ourselves some difficult questions here. Why do we admit so many people to hospital from nursing and residential homes, when there is little evidence that they get better any faster and then end up blocking the beds? Why are we not more radically reallocating resources out into the community to care for people in these settings and in their own homes? Why are we so afraid of our own mortality and allowing people to die well in environments that are familiar to them, surrounded, where possible, by people who know them and love them? How can we face our own deaths well and plan for them in a way that makes the end of our lives better for us and those around us?

 

If we take each of those questions in turn (as we plan to do) and really talk together about how we make society and therefore our health and wellbeing better for everyone, rather than leaving it to others to make those decisions from on high for us, then I think we will achieve more than we could ever imagine possible. It is in discovering one another, in encountering the other that we can be transformed and find new ways forward together.

 

A people movement or social movement such as this will invigorate and create space for those within the systems not only to reconnect with our own humanity but enable us also to have braver conversations about how we can share our resources more effectively, work together more creatively and reimagine how we can provide the kind of health and social care that makes sense for the needs of the people we serve. We might not save £50 million, but we can’t continue with things as they are and if we talk and work together, we could make a really difference.

 

 

 

 

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The Art of Hosting Good Conversations – Morecambe

Here is a video about a brilliant couple of days a bunch of us had in Morecambe, talking about how we discover what it is to be healthy and be part of a social movement to improve the health and wellbeing of everyone:

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We Need to Be Ambidextrous in Solving our Health and Social Care Conundrum

UnknownAll this week on the BBC, there has been a focus on the NHS and the crisis we are in – don’t panic Mr Mainwaring…..There is a heady mix of opinions being thrown around – Question Time became quite a furore of ideas and thoughts last night – not enough beds, not enough staff, not enough money, too much money, too many patients, too many wasted appointments, too many malingerers, too many ill people, too many old people, too many managers, too many drugs, too many drunkards, disappointed clinicians, disappointed patients, disappointed MPs, a disappointed health secretary – what are we to think and what are we to do?

 

imgresWe love the NHS because it speaks something to us about our togetherness and our commitment to health justice for all. This circular argument about money is the wrong conversation and it is beginning to have a very nasty undertone about who we might be able to blame and scapegoat in order to solve the mess we are in. Let’s be very clear. The NHS is NOT in crisis because of refugees, asylum seekers, immigrants or health tourists. I’m going to stick my neck out here – it isn’t even the fault of the current and previous health secretaries, though it would be easy to play the blame game that way too. The NHS is in crisis, because the entire Western World is in crisis! Our economic systems are broken and our political systems are pretty defunct. We have built our nation state on the foundations of empire. We have built our economy on conquest and slavery and have used debt, violence and law to keep control….but everything is shaking.

 

There are some difficult truths for us to face up to. Are we brave enough to accept that things cannot remain as they are? Are we imagesLYB84K5V.jpgbrave enough to rewire our brains, realign our values and reimagine a different way of being together? If we accept that things simply cannot remain as they are, might we instead find one another in fresh ways and discover new ways of being in which we’re not always chasing the money, with all its strings attached, but choosing something altogether more life giving?

 

images3W7WQ07WI would suggest we need two things (an ambidextrous approach) – both of which are already happening, we just need to recognise them, fan the flames and watch the new emerge, whilst Rome burns around us.

 

The first thing emerging is a grass roots people movement around health, wellbeing and a kinder society. Think of this as the left hand. We must take a left handed approach to really listen to and engage with our communities. Many people are waking up to the fact that we are eating in ways that are unnatural and completely unhealthy for the human being. Global corporations like GSK have shoved Lucozade and Ribena down our throats and then very kindly provided the medication for the diabetes we have developed. Enough! Thankfully, peopleimagesOP6FM73O.jpg are beginning to think about how we are living and making a change. It’s a tough reality, but there is personal and corporate responsibility that we need to take. We cannot keep shoving poison into our bodies or treating them badly and expect that we will be well, or that we will be able to afford the drugs to fix us. Social movements are beginning to emerge and we need to be a part of them. Together, we can! Together we can cause corporations to change their behaviour and act in accordance with what is right, true, just, kind and loving. We can also choose to take responsibility for what we buy and how much exercise we do. Here in Morecambe Bay we are launching the Morecambe Bay Mile, encouraging everyone to move a mile a day without transport! We’re also working with our communities around diet. We’re also connecting with amazing people doing amazing things and seeing just how much kindness and goodness there is in the communities around us. Our happiness is directly linked to the quality and depth of our friendships. People being together and facing up to the issues together is absolutely key to our long term health.

 

imagesBCV6CE7Y.jpgSecondly, we must stop serving the system, re-humanise it, call it in line and cause it to serve the needs of the people and the planet (the right handed approach). Those in the health and social care system must refuse to be bullied by the powers into ways of behaving, stop thinking they have the answers and therefore coming up with another new scheme to do to people and be willing to listen to and work with the emerging social movements. This will allow us to see a society that is much more well and therefore in need of less care. But where care is needed, we have to accept that we have allowed ourselves to be competitive rather than collaborative, hierarchical instead of co-operative and our own attitudes and behaviours are stopping us from giving the compassionate care we long to deliver. We cannot make excuses. We must let go of self-protectionism. We must be willing to change the way we think and behave, breaking down walls, letting go of suspicion and cutting through red tape so that we provide the care which we can. This is happening, here in Morecambe Bay – but it’s not a quick thing. We are rediscovering the power of relationship and daring to make some bold steps into delivering care very differently – but for those of you outside the system, please understand, it takes time and feels pretty scary!

 

I believe it is possible for the NHS and Social Care System to be radically transformed at this time. It might enable us to model something for the rest of the world. That in our time of crisis, we did not sell out to the lie that the only way ahead was privatisation and insurance – (in our hearts, we know this isn’t fair and it doesn’t work for everyone). No – instead we chose to work with a grass roots people movement, calling for us all to beuntitled.png more healthy and well and we changed our ways of working to be more collaborative and kind. It is this ambidextrous approach to health and wellbeing, in which a heady mix of an invigorated people movement and a reorientated system working together for the good of everyone everywhere, might breathe hope into other parts of the world that out of the old can come something new. Maybe it is just possible that healthcare can be provided for everyone everywhere when people are brave enough to let go of old ways, embrace the brokenness of our reality and find a new way through together.

 

untitled.pngI’m telling you – it is nearly Spring time and the bulbs are beginning to break through. Can you smell the scent of something new emerging? Those rhizomal roots of the snowdrops – that interconnected underground network that shoots up its flowers, is telling us the winter of discontent is over. It’s time to turn off the radio, dial down the meta narrative of fear and instead, put on love, hope and faith, find each other, change our ways of working and step into the future we know our hearts yearn for.

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Think About This

This is just a short blog, made of a few statements.

 

Our tax burden is higher than it has ever been.

We continue to cut public services deeply.

We are told we are doing this to plug the gap in our public finances and pay off our debts.

However, the debt we are in is getting bigger, despite the high taxes and huge budget cuts.

And all the while, the rich are getting richer, but the poor and marginalised are the ones who suffer.

This is totally crazy. The so called benevolent hand of the “free market” is not benevolent at all.

There is a system of economics that is much more just and fair, but it relies on an altogether different benevolent hand.

It goes like this…..Seek first the way of what is right, that which brings joy and peace to everyone everywhere, and everything you need will be given to you……..think about it……have you got a little faith in you somewhere? Hope of a brighter future for this planet? Love for people and the planet? Maybe, just maybe, it’s time to give an altogether different economy a chance to do justice.

 

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