How we behave in the NHS is a problem, but it’s also the solution
From Whitehall and Westminster, the NHS can look like an enormous machine made of units of governance, categories of activity, and financial flows. But from my point of view, having spent most of my career as a psychologist and a leader, it looks more like a culture and a society of hundreds of thousands of human beings, with values, histories, and deep affiliations. It is in this social world that the knottiest problems in our health service lie—and nearly all of the solutions. The way people speak and relate to one another should not be an afterthought. It lurks at the heart of the most troubling and tragic failures in our health service. Overconfidence and a culture of “them and us” can cause a reluctance to involve colleagues or refer patients elsewhere. This was identified in the Ockenden review1 as a driver of the maternity incidents investigated, along with the failure to learn from them. New and troubling examples of toxic mistrust among healthcare teams causing harm to patients continue to emerge across the NHS. An even more consistent …
Continue reading this article about How we behave in the NHS is a problem, but it’s also the solution
by Stein T.
NHS Forums - For daily discussion by NHS Staff.
From Whitehall and Westminster, the NHS can look like an enormous machine made of units of governance, categories of activity, and financial flows. But from my point of view, having spent most of my career as a psychologist and a leader, it looks more like a culture and a society of hundreds of thousands of human beings, with values, histories, and deep affiliations. It is in this social world that the knottiest problems in our health service lie—and nearly all of the solutions. The way people speak and relate to one another should not be an afterthought. It lurks at the heart of the most troubling and tragic failures in our health service. Overconfidence and a culture of “them and us” can cause a reluctance to involve colleagues or refer patients elsewhere. This was identified in the Ockenden review1 as a driver of the maternity incidents investigated, along with the failure to learn from them. New and troubling examples of toxic mistrust among healthcare teams causing harm to patients continue to emerge across the NHS. An even more consistent …
Continue reading this article about How we behave in the NHS is a problem, but it’s also the solution
by Stein T.
NHS Forums - For daily discussion by NHS Staff.
