Getting better?

We read a lot about how bad things are in the NHS… how tough life is for staff how terrible for patients… but it is never universally true..and there are good news stories too. WE don’t often hear them because somehow they aren’t as news worthy… it is sad to me that a good news story comes and goes , little is said about it whilst bad news is the stuff we discuss in coffee shops across the land…..what does it say about us all that we would rather dissect all the bad things that happen rather than celebrate the good.?
Our GPs were successful in getting the challenge fund bid. An injection of cash which allows them to really work on how to improve primary care into the future and the time and space to do it right: A rare opportunity, a fantastic thing. It was covered my our local paper on the front page but we hardly received a call from the media who are normally all over us when something is difficult or contentious. One of my colleagues said to me yesterday they were surprised by the lack of interest. Many members of the public stop me in the street and ask me why they don’t heard more about the good things we are doing. Well we try, but putting out press releases it not the same thing as getting things into the press!
We have lots of good news! As a health economy we have balanced our books for the first time in many many years.. having paid back debt inherited from our PCT. We are investing in community services to build a robust and coordinated community system, mental health services especially services for people with dementia. We are putting back things our PCT had stripped out in an ever increasingly desperate attempt to balance.. like IVF. .investment in weight management services, autism services, counselling services etc..etc… Staff who came with us from the PCT are excited and energised because we are actually getting to do the right things..rather than endlessly talking about taking reducing services… we are building our communities, strengthening local services, working in collaboration with our GPs to make things better, brining care closer to home. We have wrapped up our local enhanced service monies into one basket scheme and added some to it, so it is now an “out of hospital scheme” and includes the monitoring of stable prostate cancer patients, acute catheterisation, taking patients from the ambulance service who called 999 but are assessed as being suitable for GP services, DVT assessment et etc and is now delivered by all our practices to all our patients. Fantastic.. and we will add more.. .we are now looking at preoperative assessment etc. It is actually taking care out of distant hospitals and bringing it home. It is a small but important change and by doing it for every patient we can actually decommission the service from the acute hospital. It is one small example of something good. Many have written that CCGS haven’t delivered. My response is give us a chance! We have only been here for a year. Show me the PCT that made significant change in a year! And we all know that transformational change is actually a series of small changes that build a new system.. a pointillist painting…
It almost feels now that saying positive things isnt allowed... we are all supposed just to say how difficult and awful everything is. I remember years ahgo I went to a conference where a "motivational speaker" was first on the agenda. AS we waited for her my heart sank..this is going to be a waste of time/embarrasing etc but it was amazing. She challenged us all about our positivity.She asked us to stand up and tell the audience something great we had done over the previous weekend. We all loooked to the floor avoiding eye contact. She then posed the question " why do children go into school on Mondays bursting to tell the class about the wonderful things they did at the weekend whilst when I asked you you all stared at the floor? When does that happen?
WE have fun at work. WE laugh. We DO. We are proud of what we are doing. IT feels good.
We know there are clouds looming. WE aren’t immune from the threats we all face but can we please please sometimes celebrate the good?