In my experience
In the first In My Experience section of the bulletin, Professor Robert Worcester, a non-executive director at Medway NHS Trust, talks about his experiences in the NHS
Internationally-renowned founder of polling organisation MORI, Professor Robert Worcester has been a non-executive director of Medway NHS Trust in Kent for two years. Of his external appointments, including governor of the London School of Economics, this is his most challenging, he claims.
'These experiences have made me a better nonexecutive, seeing teamwork at first hand. At the coalface you gain a better understanding of life behind the statistics...'
In an exercise to experience his hospital's frontline tasks, he chose the work of anaesthetists. This brought him in touch with a wide range of patients and their conditions - watching operations and seeing how staff responded when a patient left hospital just before surgery.
"These experiences have made me a better non-executive, seeing teamwork at first hand. At the coalface you gain a better understanding of life behind the statistics supplied to board meetings,"
he said.
Professor Worcester welcomes wholeheartedly the guidance Governing the NHS published recently to help board members focus on their governance role.
"This is the best piece of NHS work I've seen on this topic,"
he says. "I keep it with me always for my NHS commitments. I recommend all members to look at it and use it... it's very readable."
He believes his board is characterised by the buy-in to the principle of transparency.
He says there are no barriers to sharing information and there is trust regarding the accuracy of information. He knows that he can speak freely to anyone from the medical or other staff.
However, like everyone connected with the NHS, he has concerns and voices them to further the debate.
Current issues include:
- anxiety about some quality of management data
- 'dysfunctional' relationships between different authorities and trusts
- the requirement to know who's who within the trust and their responsibilities - an A4
"spider-web"
map suggested by him has helped give greater clarity to everyone - a general streamlining of management
- need for fewer committees and committee members
- slowness of introducing the bedside TV system for patients.
Professor Worcester is passionate about the trust he serves and the work it does. He sees his involvement as wholly "putting in "
and "not getting out"
.
"We changed the system as a result of this - some 32 patients were affected. But it will take two years to achieve another star"
One of his objectives is to see Medway restored to two-star status from a one-star award this year. An administration error, fully reported, from which lessons were learned, was responsible for the downgrade.
"We changed the system as a result of this - some 32 patients were affected. But it will take two years to achieve another star"
he says.
This experience, he concludes, is at the heart of what boards are encountering as they govern the NHS.
