Wednesday 31 March 2010

Comments on UK NHS




 Sketches of comment added to a post calling for a more vocational culture to our National Health service.

The system of 'health service delivery' has been quantified and rendered into pseudo market terms. The processing of 'customers' often involves an impersonal lack of courtesy. The increasing reliance on ever expanding (costly) hi tech health management solutions - along with never ending retraining can lose all sense of proportion when basic nursing care human dignity is subordinated to mechanical functions. Love, to be itself, must be practically embodied. It doesn't have to be 'called' love - but it does have to be tangible care and not 'provision of care services'. There is so much in our current setup that works against the willingness of those who feel a vocational calling - in NHS as in the country as a whole. I consider it a spiritual vacuum - not in terms of religion per se - but in terms of a culture of inspiration, trust and cooperation. Relationships of trust cannot be mechanized In terms of incentives and real communication does not occur where there is lack of trust and of each other's worth. The NHS needs a spirit of renewal, a re evaluation in truth - and the economic aspects will then also find their due proportion. But this can only be part of a similar movement culturally as individuals speak and act in integrity with truth. Thats what renewal is - not a rebranding with ideas painted on and targets to indicate progress - but the green shoots that grow from those who have readjusted from outmoded or false mentalities and are daring to act from a fresh perspective.
It is a most wonderful thing that when any one of us needs help - help is given.
But we must be vigilant not lose the heart that inspires and underlies this willingness.
posted by Brian Steere at