Back on track…

Apologies for the lack of blogs over the last couple of weeks but I have once again been engaging with the NHS on behalf of another close relative. The operation was fairly major one, and the whole experience has once again highlighted the best and worst of our healthcare system.

The best clearly comes from the skill of the surgical team and the immediate post-operative care in the hospital. The ward based care was also quite good although I am not sure that hospitals will ever be the best places for recovering patients after their initial acute care is no longer necessary. Where the whole system seems fall apart is once a patient is discharged back into the GP system.

I fully understand that the best care does come from family and friends, and that it is unreasonable to expect the state to provide equivalent care. As such we have been doing our utmost to help the patient get back on their feet and continue on the road back to full health. Yet it seems to me that we have been pretty much left to our own devices, expected to scream and shout very loudly if we do require anything. Moreover the psychological needs of the patient and carer, that constant reassurance that we are doing the right things, and that progress is being made have been totally lacking.

It seems odd that having invested so much effort and resource in the initial care and treatment that the ultimate success of such treatment is put at risk by the failure to put proper systems in place once somebody leaves hospital. I am sure that health professionals everywhere will agree that post-operative care outside of hospital could be better but will then point out that the resources in this field are very limited and will remain so unless more cash is forthcoming.

I guess this could be seen as a natural lead in to the current newsworthiness of tax, the debate that is raging about the morality of avoidance schemes (that remark will come back to haunt DC make no mistake), and whether tax cuts or tax increases are the best way to get us back on track economically. However that is probably best left as the subject of another blog.

What I will say though is that in business we are always encouraged to emphasise the benefits rather than the cost. As anybody who pays out for private medical insurance will tell you, the return you get for your taxes as regards health care when you really need it is for most people a bargain. Maybe the tax argument would be so much easier if everything could be explained in such simple terms. Or looking at the plans for an annual personal tax statement maybe not…..

Enterprise Jubilee…..

Last week the country celebrated 60 years of the latest incarnation of one of Britain’s longest running family firms. If that sounds disrespectful it is not meant to be. Any institution that lasts as long as the monarchy has done must be doing something right, even if certain of its activities may not have earned universal approval in the past.

Clear succession planning helps, as does a strong brand and a secure source of income. However there are countless examples of that not being sufficient to ensure survival.   The Queen as a CEO may not get business school pulses racing but she has skilfully led the firm from the front through sixty years of unprecedented change.

Even during her rocky period in the 1990s she was able to take stock, listen to advice, and adapt, thus setting the scene for the strengthening of the monarchy’s position that has taken place in the last ten years. There is much that Enterprise Britain can learn from the Royal Family.

I was one of the million or so loyal subjects that lined the Thames on Sunday to watch the flotilla of boats travel down the river in weather that some may say offered proof that God really is a republican. More importantly, given the service provided by our various rail companies, I managed to get home again.

What is it with the train companies? One million people were expected to be in London for the flotilla. That being the case why was it deemed acceptable to run a normal Sunday service? I can accept all the arguments that rail employees are entitled to enjoy their leisure time as much as anybody else…actually no I can’t. The reality is that service industries exist to provide their services when people require them not when they can be bothered to provide them.  

We were lucky enough to embark at Waterloo at the start of the line, even though we were squashed like sardines in the middle of a coach. The large numbers of people looking to board at Vauxhall, Battersea (which had housed a major family event and therefore was teeming with parents and kids) and Clapham Junction, who had paid good money for their journey, did not have a hope of getting on.

These organisations are clearly run for their employees (at all levels in case you think this is case of union bashing) rather than their customers. This along with sky high executive pay and bonuses, and the proliferation of complex fares and penalties for the unwary traveller, shows what a dog’s dinner rail privatisation has been.

There you have it. A weekend that demonstrated the best, and worst, that Britain has to offer. One wonders what the forthcoming Olympic jamboree will bring….