They are ridiculously expensive which is the point I’m making. If senior management were doing their job you wouldn’t need consultants, or far less of them. If you can get voluntary assistance from people on trust boards then they can bring external experience without the cost. Looking at systems and processes as an outsider usually brings challenges to the norm, plenty of which might well be rebutted on medical grounds but that doesn’t mean improvements won’t be found. If people are at board level they are more likely to oversee changes whereas consultants, from what I’ve heard, get bogged down by the inability of management to make decisions and drive through change
It’s strange that people are pushing back on suggestions like that. Group think amongst the medical profession can be dangerous and not listening to outside suggestions on how to improve processes in conjunction with additional funding/investment…I’m struggling to see the issue
Ps I think I said 2-3 years ago that people should check out a book called black box thinking about the culture within medical profession ie an inability to admit errors and effect change quickly which was driven by an arrogance of senior professionals unwilling to listen, acknowledge and address faults in the system. Yet people seem to think any outside challenge and involvement is a waste of time ?!
As I said before managers make up just 2% of the NHS, compared to 9.5% of the general UK workforce population. The reason deloitte, etc are brought in is because there isn't enough management support to really drive change, what they have is mostly dealing with firefighting. More investment is needed not just to support increase in clinical work but also increasing the number of managers to the required level. And as I mentioned in my experience they offer very little for the money they bring in.
Trusts already bring people in outside of Health to support with the management and governance of NHS, what you're suggesting is nothing new and is already happening.
The NHS and trusts are continually improving processes, working towards becoming leaner. Every manager in the NHS wants to drive change and improve services for patients.
There has been a lot of work around the duty of candour, admitting mistakes and looking to address them. The reason some decisions and changes take time to push through and get adopted it financial constraints within the NHS. Finance gets put above clinical need. Trusts are underfunded, understaffed, and struggling to recruit and retain staff (due to poor parades = finances), they are trying to juggle significant saving targets, alongside rising costs/inflation and trying to meet increasing clincial demands.
Peoples (and my) issue isn't your suggestion of getting more external input to support the NHS but more that you're (in line with general Tory rhetoric) are trying to scape goat NHS managers as being inept and unwilling to want to improve services. Which is just plain wrong.
On a side note let's compare the success of Test and Trace led by Private Sector expert Dido Harding, against the success of the coordination and delivery of the roll out of the Vaccine programme led by the NHS.
Interestingly my friend moved to Deloitte after 15 years in the NHS as a middle manager, his wages have gone up by 30% whilst his workload and responsibility has halved. He's gone from doing an extra 7-10 hours a week unpaid work in the NHS to doing his nice 8-4pm every day, always leaving on time.
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