When I worked in a Hospice a new computer system system was bought in to comply with NHS requirements (About 30% of hospice beds were paid for by the NHS)
There were a load of nurses on the training course, during the break I was chatting to a few of them.
They were not happy, one said to me ‘I made a career choice to go into Nursing. I didn’t make a career choice to go into IT, this shit is one of the major reasons I left the NHS’
She had (and has) my sympathies, I realise that administrators cannot make decisions without data, but recording that data should not become the main priority of those providing the care.
During my five years at the RIE the management invested early into pioneering IT. Those computers never made it out of the basement into operational use, to my knowledge.
A whole new swathe of data collection was introduced which put at least half an hour (unpaid) onto the day. We later learned the information collected was being meticulously shredded week by week.
I do have a lot of sympathy with this, not least because so much of the time of government scientists is also spent sitting in front of screens rather than in the lab pushing the frontiers of knowledge forward.
However it seems to me, as a complete outsider but sometime patient, that crimsondonkey’s right to say patients do need a mix of clinical and operational care. If there had been an effective IT system then the fact that ZM’s Louise had already had her pain meds would have been recorded in it, and two other people would not then have tried to administer them. The problem, as with so much IT, is not that it exists but that it is ineffective. It doesn’t have to be this way. I fill in my tax return online and I have to say that that works well. Good IT is possible. But it takes expertise and effort and that means spending money.
Standards have dropped across most employers. Teachers - not as good as they used to be.
Solicitors- not as good as they used to be.
Bank staff - not as good etc
Training has been dummed down and the result is less able staff.
Those are real. My stepfather spent the best part of 6 months on a hospital ward, and that was one that was meant to have some specialism in caring for the mentally impaired, but they still dropped the ball with potentially serious consequences at least twice.
My mother went into hospital with dementia and died there, when she needn’t have, despite them being told of the problems / risks she was being subjected to. The NHS are shit at dealing with patients with mental problems.
teacher training is much tougher than when I was trained to be a teacher in the early 80’s. Staff in the dept I am leading work closely with student teachers, and I can assure you, their studies and training is more rigorous than ever.
I was at a conference many years ago and a speaker received an effusive introduction culminating in ’ …one of the leading experts in the field Professor (whatever his name was).
The Prof thanked everyone for their kind welcome then said "I would like to correct one thing in the introduction, I am not an expert. X being the unknown quantity and a ‘Spurt’ being a drip under pressure.
Not bring able to recruit the right people is also a problem.
Our friends daughter did a degree in business studies. On finishing she signed up for “teach first”. She was placed at a challenging school in Coventry. They made her head of department before she even qualified. Now, this is a girl we like very much, and have a great deal of respect for, but to make her head of dept when she had zero experience is in no ones best interests.
