All Change!

So here we are… finally the real thing. Lots of people have asked  me “How does it feel?”…. Well the answer is for me personally .. not very different really in that we have been doing the job for the last 18 months or so.. but now I guess the buck stops here….with me, and that feels big!

What has been interesting though has been to watch the architecture of the commissioning ( buying services) part of  NHS  be taken apart and  rebuilt  gradually over the  last few  months picking up speed towards the deadline….and  how complex and difficult that has been. Now we have gone past the date when it all had to be rebuilt and ready for habitation… we have discovered  we need bits we cant find and  bits that we have that aren’t ours but don’t seem to fit anywhere else.... like one of those old jigsaw puzzles you find in a dusty cupboard … some pieces missing and some pieces that just don’t seem to fit anywhere…

Just to make life even more interesting many organisations have recently moved home ( we have moved from old PCT building to share  with our local authority) and along with that comes phone and IT chaos lasting weeks ( no landlines for 2 weeks, slow or absent internet access) …. And then .. just to top it all for some reason someone decided that Aprils Fools day would be a great day to migrate  all staff from one email system to a new one… with new addresses.. less functionality… marvellous!

And the day job has to go on.. despite lack of computers of telephones contracts must be signed, plans made, savings made.. the clock is ticking..

It has not just been us that have been confused… We  received a letter from a patient who was appealing against a decision made early this year by our PCT individual case funding panel and ,because of  reorganisations, her case is now being dealt with by a new and much more remote part of NHS England, involving a whole new set of people. And she is confused and I don’t blame her.

And I ask myself… surely we could have done this better…such big organisational change  means new jobs, new  roles, new colleagues, new challenges feels difficult.. painful.. confusing…uncertain… Surely the NHS -which does this so regularly-should be getting better at learning the lessons and at least do the structural bits efficiently and swiftly, which might lessen the pain.  Maybe the problem  is we lose so many good  people each  time we shake everything in the snow globe up again , and there are few  people left with the memory of the past and  those who are left worry about being seen to be  overly  negative..

It will get better, and in a whole this will seem like a distant memory we can laugh about…Lets hope there are enough of us left next time ……