They do it because it works... it's about change.
We don't need to 'change' the NHS. Rated by the Commonwealth Fund as the top healthcare system; what's to change?
Rich or poor, young or yer granny, we don't care. We turn-up, scoop you up, fix you up and get you up-n-running as best as we can.
No credit card required. Syndicated risk, tax funded. What's to change?
I don't want to change the NHS but I do want to change how we 'do' the NHS.
I have seen just about every attempt possible to change the structures of the NHS. Politicians believe, if they reorganise the NHS enough, it will do more work for less money. The evidence is poor.
The Griffith's Report, the Thatcher Reforms, Labour's market reforms. None of them worked we are still trying to pretend we have never had Lansley's potty ideas.
Change the NHS; forget it. Make it more nimble and innovative... yes!
You will never, in a month of Sundays or a year of blue-moons, achieve worthwhile change from Whitehall, Leeds or by a regulator turning up with 120 inspectors in a fleet of charabancs.
If quality is what you do when no one is looking, change is what you do when everyone is looking and involved. People love change when they feel they are in charge.
There are two ways to nail-in meaningful change.
First; ask the people doing the job what needs to be done to help them do their bit better, enhance it, make it faster, quicker, more reliable.
Second; find out what good looks like, share it and people will get on and do it, often even better.
The problem; no one asks. The reason? It takes effort and organisations are generally lazy, think they know better. Ground-up change challenges their roll. They think they are paid to know better. They are not; they are paid to find out what works better.
Control of the system is pushed further away from the people who know what they are doing, into the hands of the people who think they know what they are doing.
That is why intelligent health systems around the world find ingenious and exciting ways, like Change Day, to find out what works and share it.
"It's easy to get caught-up believing that change needs to start somewhere else... waiting for someone else to 'fix' things or... someone to give us permission to be amazing... or even just to do what we know need to be done."
The most worrying word; 'permission'. Why would we want to make someone wait for 'permission' to do their job better? It is a crushing condemnation of management, hierarchy and workplace relationships.
In a week's time, on October 19th we have our own 'Change Day'. The Academy of Fabulous Stuff, with the help of the boffins at KPMG working across the US, India and the UK, have developed an App' to enable everyone in the NHS and care services to make a Change Day Pledge, to change something where they work. It's here.
I'm looking forward to my Change Day Challenge! With the support of software leaders IMS Maxims, I'll be visiting 12 NHS and care establishments in 24hrs.
Trusts, primary care, ambulance control-room and hostels across England. Our team takes-off from the NAPC conference in Birmingham on the morning of the 19th and heads north, by helicopter; we then work our way south, during the night, by car and ending at the Royal London for breakfast on the morning of the 20th.
A 'day' is 24hrs and the NHS works relentlessly around the clock. We will celebrating and highlighting what they do. You can follow our progress on Periscope and on the Academy web-site. Come and say hello!
As the NHS is plunged into debt, not of its own making; is battling a reorganisation it never wanted and is struggling like never before... let's show everyone how the path to nimble innovation, system improvement and invention is waiting where people are doing the job. We just have to ask.
No idea too small, each one precious, each one ready to be shared and multiplied across the system. Let's give real change a chance.
You can make your Change Day Pledge here and let's put your ideas into a year of action.
