DSPT 2024/25…

…has now been launched and I think that NHSE has undersold the step change that is needed to comply with it. It is a totally different way of looking at things and there has to be a lot more senior management involvement and sign off. In reality if you are a Tier One organisation, you … Read more

A lot of people are very reasonable…

…when something goes wrong they are not after compensation but just want the opportunity to have things put right. Maybe if we started off on that basis a lot of complaints would not progress further and service users would really start to be seen as stakeholders. Let’s be honest – a lot of NHS users … Read more

New blood…

…is always needed but it needs to be balanced out with keeping knowledge in the organisation. Some changes can go so far that you end up having to reinvent everything simply because change was made for the sake of change.

You know you are right…

…when people start saying “we need to protect the organisation” after they wrote things into HR records and they never thought that the member of staff may be able to see what they wrote. In the public sector records should be written in a way that recognises that the staff they are about may ask … Read more

Standards are slipping

There does not seem to be any pride in the work that people do – both in terms of factual quality or in terms of the quality of the work itself. If you are implementing new processes or providing advice and guidance in areas from employment law to data protection law, there has to be … Read more

FOI – when is a backlog not a backlog?

It is not a backlog if the ICO has not noticed how many requests are outstanding and only becomes a backlog when the ICO starts to get involved. A 2.5% compliance rate (at times) and 650+ backlog should never have been acceptable and senior management should have been fighting tooth and nail to overcome the … Read more

What next for the NHS?

New government, good intentions but asking for another Darzi report seems a bit meaningless. I hope that they do not see contractors as the “villain” – a lot of us understand what we are doing, are value for money and bluntly, keeping knowledge in the system when permanent staff are looking to leave.