I know, I know, I’ve written a lot about the NHSE/I Board.
It’s important. I wish I’d done it earlier.
With absolutely no apology, I’m returning to it today. No, I won’t stop. Here’s why…
… here are just five items taken from the papers of the last Board… you be the judge:
1…‘Ambulance services are… experiencing significant pressures… with 999 responding to… 800,000 calls in February… [including] 68,000 Category 1, calls.’
That’s only 8.5% Cat1, callers that got an immediate response?
A serious condition such as a stroke it seems isn’t Cat1. Neither a diabetic in trouble nor yer granny pole-axed, on the kitchen floor, with a broken leg.
These numbers mislead the Board as to how serious and long, waits are. There’s no ambulance person on the Board. How do we get a better picture and do something about it?
Dunno… no one asked.
2…Following the Treasury’s approval of the… business case to support the digitisation of diagnostic care, 390 memoranda of understanding have been issued to enable systems to access funding.
How fast is the procurement? Can we speed it up? When? Who hasn’t applied? Why?
Dunno… no one asked.
3…At 31 December 2021 data suggests over 16,000 FTE, additional roles had been recruited towards the ‘Manifesto commitment’ of recruiting 26,000 [primary care] additional roles against the… March, 2019 baseline.
What is meant by ‘data suggests’? Why ‘manifesto commitment’? Is it an NHS operational target? Will we hit the 23/24 target or miss it. How many have been recruited and left? Why? The baseline is 3yrs ago? Why?
Dunno… no one asked.
4…[A] …strong delivery focus on mental health with sufficient workforce and funding will be crucial to ensure… delivery and transformation continues at pace.
How’s the workforce problem being fixed? When, who, how? What does ‘ continues at pace’ mean? How much funding? Have we got a fully-funded programme?
Dunno… no one asked.
5…Trusts reported… on compliance with actions from the… Ockenden 1, Report… all Trusts… being either fully compliant or partially compliant, with each… of the twelve clinical priorities across the seven Immediate and Essential Actions…
The actual numbers; 31 out of 123 Trusts reported that they are fully compliant with all twelve clinical priorities across the seven IEAs.
Thirty one is only 25%? ‘All Trusts’ is misleading, isn’t it? What does this mean? What is the status of the other 92?
Dunno… no one asked.
Workforce report… there wasn’t one…
… but at the last meeting, 60 days ago, The CNO told the Board, in terms, international recruitment would save our bacon.
I’m doubtful.
There are complex regulations around ethical recruitment that translate into a ‘red-list’, where it’s a no-no (47 countries) and a ‘green-list’.
Philippines and Malaysia are on an HMG agreed green-list.
Active recruitment is permitted from green countries;
‘Green countries are any country not on the red or amber list…
… green graded countries without a government-to-government agreement are not published.
What does mean? Dunno… no one asked.
My take? The ‘green’ countries are mainly healthcare systems competing with us for recruits from Philippines and Malaysia.
Last year about 8,000 overseas, non-EU nurses were recruited. With fees, travel, registration and relocation costs of about £12,000 each, that adds up to £96,000,000.
We’ll need at least 20,000 nurses, from non-EU, to contribute towards BoJo’s ‘Manifesto commitment‘ of 50k more nurses by 2025.
Call it £240,000,000.
One Trust spent £1.1m to recruit 154 nurses. That’s about £6.5k a head.
Cheaper than growing our own? Maybe, but is this a sustainable policy? Obviously not.
What does the Board say about any of this? Dunno… no one asked.
It’s taken me less than an hour to look into this and research the numbers. We pay, full-time-experts a lot of money to manage the NHS on our behalf…
... and, the Chair and non-executives are paid to look, ask and watch out for our interests.
It is not an easy job; competing priorities, political interference, pressures and the press, but…
… this job has not been done well. The outgoing Chair and present non-executives have a lot to answer for.
I think oversight is poor. As I say, you be the judge.
Are they so far out of their depth, and the situation is so grave, they don’t know what to ask.
Do they know perfectly well what’s going on, yet conspire in a silence to camouflage the real situation.
We have a new chair, Richard Meddings, he needs to make a clean sweep.
News and Comment from Roy Lilley
Contact Roy – please use this e-address roy.lilley@nhsmanagers.net
Reproduced at thetrainingnet.com by kind permission of Roy Lilley.
