The NHS in 2009

photo by the|G|™

Here's seven personal New Year wishes for the NHS. These are not necessarily the most urgent challenges but, for me, they are some of the most important. A bit belated I know, but I've only just managed to defeat the Man flu:

1. Get serious about recruiting for attitudes and values. Let's really try to strengthen compassion, integrity, pro-activity and respect for people's wishes;

2. Develop more integrated clinical pathways AND financially incentivise acute and primary care providers, jointly, for the attainment of certain outcomes. We've made progress on the clinical recording systems, now we need to use them;

3. Find ways to 'get a grip' on what's coming down the scientific 'pipelines' and interpret and re-present this intelligence in ways that invite managers to get into dialogue with clinicians about implications for the next 5 – 7 years. Let's not wait till we hear about this stuff on the nine o'clock news!

4. Be more proactive about reshaping or investing in (new) services to ameliorate some of the probable effects of the credit crunch, especially services needed as a consequence of likely mass redundancies. Btw, do we know which areas have most jobs at risk and who the 'at risk' people are?

5. Move social marketing into a pull/push/act cycle rather than a mass broadcast push only service. A bit cryptic I know- happy to talk more about this if asked;

6. Switch revenue investment into good 3^rd sector organisations to give more 'space' for challenging official policy direction where this seems too conservative or overly centralist in nature. The NHS, at local level, will probably never have the ability to really push back hard. This just might be a better way;

7. Finally, and it won't be all that popular, don't don't don't backtrack any further about 'making markets'. The opportunities are too great. There are millions of good, talented, compassionate people out there – working beyond the NHS – who could really help to move healthcare forward. Let's use them.
   

Do any of these strike you as 'spot on'? Perhaps some suggest that I'm living on a different planet? What are your wishes for the NHS in 2009?

Oh and happy 2009.

nhshealthcare