I have a question.
‘What if….’
What if… you’d never taken that road… met that person… taken that job?
What if you’d listened… stopped to think…
What if we weren’t so dependent on oil and gas.
What if we’d listened to the ‘Greens’, those lovely people with their woolly hats, sandals and beans.
What if we’d realised the wind, a stream, a waterfall, the tide, can turn a wheel. If you can turn a wheel you can mill wheat, make bread and… electricity.
If you can make electricity you can make things, make journeys, make jobs.
Instead…
We are in a scramble for oil and gas, to keep our wheels turning. The lights on.
We can’t buy oil from a war criminal, so we will hold our nose and buy it from a man who chops off the heads of his citizens.
We daren’t buy oil from a man who bombs families but we might dare to buy oil from a regime that holds-hostage the mums of our daughters. Fathers and husbands.
What if we’d listened to the siren voices about the climate, the planet and how we run our affairs… and spent the last 50 years exploiting carbon-free technologies.
We would be free of the despots, the criminals and being held hostage… and free of ‘international diplomacy’.
International diplomacy. See it for what it is; wheeling, dealing, dissembling and compromise.
And… I am not saying we shouldn’t be pragmatic.
If the best interest of the nation is served by putting a peg on our nose… we must do it. I am not trying to be wise or pious.
I’m just asking… what if.
Because the ‘what if’ question applies to so much of what we do, have done and the future of the NHS and social care…
What if…
What if we had listened to the voices that had said; inequality kills people.
What if we had listened, earlier, to the people who told us smoking kills people.
What if we hadn’t blocked the lobby for sugar-free drinks.
What if we’d had generations of happy, active, healthy kids.
What if we’d listened and understood that a good job is the first step in our wellbeing and mental health.
What if we had listened and understood, that a safe place to live, not hassled by a land-lord at the front door, or a drugs-lord on the balcony, is a stepping stone to the life most of us want.
What if we had listened to the people who said we are all equal under the heavens. Denied opportunity, denies the nation of talent and success.
What if we had listened to the communities who told us, getting old isn’t a penalty, it is a joy and a resource.
What if we had listened to the unions and the workers who told us factories run better when they are clean and safe.
If we’d listened to all that, we might have avoided ill health, accident and perhaps 60% of the reasons people use the health service.
- About a third of all deaths are classed as premature.
- Around 40% of premature mortality in the UK is caused by preventable disease.
- About 40% of the burden on the NHS may be preventable, through action on the determinants of avoidable chronic conditions.
We didn’t listen and like the politicians, who are now making false choices about who are the least evil people selling oil and gas…
… the NHS is making false choices about how to juggle waiting lists.
… watching the health-oligarchs who run care homes, send their profits to tax havens.
… inventing ‘virtual-services’, when we know, only the real ones really work.
We’ve avoided the tough battles with the food and drinks industry, the package food packers and have never, really had a war on drug dealers.
A supine NHSE Board, has never taken the government to task about workforce planning and has now agreed a 30% increase in productivity and a 5% cut in funding.
… what if they said this is bonkers and no?
If the oil predicament doesn’t shine a light on the dark recesses of compromise and its toxic effect, nothing will.
If it doesn’t teach us to listen to the voices with uncomfortable messages, what will?
It’s Monday, this week; don’t compromise, don’t deal, don’t trade-off and don’t settle for anything that isn’t right.
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.
