What goes around comes around. Another year and another conference season is upon us.
Once again we will sit at the feet of the great and good who will tell us how to be great and good.
Once again we will hear speaker after speaker use a word that will give them away for what they are. Immediately identify them as snake-oil salesmen.
A four letter word. A simple word that the motivators will use as a call to action. The policy makers will use as an imperative. The buggins-turn-ers will use because they can't think of anything else.
They will use it as emphasis, to legitimise their arguments and as a proxy.
The word is 'must'.
You will hear it time and time again.
'The NHS must... do this... must... do that'
The words you will never hear them speak are 'how' and 'when' and 'where'.
When you hear the next speaker pronounce the NHS 'must' do something, rise out of your seat and shout 'how'!
The favourite, doing the rounds now; 'the NHS must work with social services...'
Yes, we know. We've known it for the last ten years. People are not stupid. They know that. The question is; how? Sharing budgets and resources across the boundaries of care has been possible for all of those ten years. A better question; why haven't sensible, bright, innovative, ingenious managers done it?
Time frames, budget cycles, imperatives, strategies, governance, competing priorities and policies have all been barriers to what health and social care 'must' do.
To this particular 'must', there is a how and a where; Salford, who for months have been preparing the ground for an Integrated Care Organisation have managed the transfer of 400 adult social care staff into an organisation far wider than just the NHS.
This is no longer a 'must do', it is an 'is doing'.
Is it replicable, is it scalable. Can you do it where you work? I have no idea! The word 'must' has no place in the lexicon of change masters.
Phrases such as; look at this, let me show you, did you know... are the phrases that are worth buying a ticket to hear about.
The NHS has theorisers and think-tanks a plenty. It is short of the sleeves-rolled-up, practical people who can show you how they did it and help you to understand how you can do it too.
The NHS must?
Make sensible practical plans
Understand the real issues it is trying to resolve
Sympathetic to the problems it is trying to solve and the impact solutions will have on the people working to deliver the change
Time-frames that are realistic, manageable and deliverable.
This 'must' is a must that is a prerequisite an imperative and an absolute.
Saying we 'must' doesn't make anything happen any quicker.
Saying we 'must' doesn't shine a light on solutions to our problems.
Saying we 'must' balance the books doesn't change the austerity policies that got us into this mess.
Saying we 'must' hit targets doesn't help us with flow and demand management.
Saying we 'must' reduce demand doesn't address the fault lines across generations of well-being that have been neglected.
Shouting 'must' won't bring us closer to a balance, closer to a target, or closer to a solution.
Offering explanations, showing results, sharing enlightened ideas, will. Working together, involvement and faith in a shared purpose.
And to do that... we must trust each other.