The feature on Clare Chapman, NHS director-general of workforce (“A healthy constitution”, 29 January), cannot pass without some full and frank feedback.
While I have no doubt that Chapman is a committed person with an excellent track record, NHS problems are so deep-rooted that a little more is required than simply “listening to people”. Typically, the powers that be will do what was on their agenda anyway. While the NHS constitution seems a good thing, it’s little more than a veneer that Joseph Stalin would be proud of.
I write as the partner of a member of the medical staff in an NHS trust where the culture is such that employees dare not speak out for fear of recrimination.
Not so long ago a minister of state came to open a new facility. Designated individuals were given questions to ask, and others told that if anyone who was not an approved questioner asked a question, they would be asked to leave the event. What happened to freedom of speech?
Staff are learning more about what’s happening to their jobs from the local press than they are from the army of pen-pushers who measure everything and know the value of little.
Most communication is by command and tell, and does not consider that the people doing the job day-in, day-out, have insights that may be of value – so that change can be achieved in partnership.
The NHS Agenda for Change has in many ways been a demonstration of exploitation. The NHS has at its heart hundreds of thousands of vocational workers who joined when the values that Chapman speaks so eloquently about were the cornerstone of a national institution. These workers assumed that their primary role was patient care and recovery.
Parts of the NHS have become so politicised with “rightspeak” that to disagree with management is now tantamount to writing one’s own resignation letter.
Name and address withheld