Saul Miller is a GP in Wooler, Northumberland.
‘Who is he then?’ Angel asked snappily. She was always a tad hyped like this after morning surgery, even somehow in the way she dunked her teabag ahead of the clinical meeting. Her adrenaline needed to ebb a little.
‘Not is – was‘, corrected Mo. ‘He was a lad with disabilities who died a few years back. Usual thing you know — admitted to hospital, sausage factory processing, no one listened, bad outcome. Then unusual thing, a mother who campaigned to improve the system instead of driving it further down with lawsuits.’
There was a pleasing plop as the wet teabag hit the side of the metal bin.
“Then unusual thing, a mother who campaigned to improve the system instead of driving it further down with lawsuits.”
Angel looked up. ‘And so what have we got to do now?’
‘Yet more mandatory training.’ Mo smiled, his teeth gleaming between his neat moustache and beard, but eyebrows raised in irony.
‘Have you done it yet?’
‘The online version, yes. That’s the one that came out a few years ago and is meant to be done already.’
Angel looked sweetly over the top of her mug. ‘Oh dear, those emails must have gone to junk. But just the nuisance of more brainwashing masquerading as education then, a bit like short interventions for lifestyle? Do you think it’ll make a difference to the five per cent who really need it or just further dispirit the rest?’
Mo was busy with a biscuit. Sid, who had been busy working the coffee machine, responded instead. ‘I think the bigger issue is the whole day of face-to-face training that everyone NHS also needs to do, with limited group sizes, only a handful of trainers for the region, a deadline of next April, very limited funding, and apparent indifference as to the number of appointments it will cost.’
‘Sid, I thought the government position was that GP practices were non-NHS?’ Angel sounded a little perplexed.
‘For funding considerations, yes’, Mo interjected. ‘Apparently not for obligation considerations though.’
Angel took another sip and then cocked her head. ‘I’m guessing it’s the usual thing of needing to do the mandatory training and keep the service going unchanged, because the service and the humans who provide it are parallel universes?’
‘Yes!’ Mo and Sid answered together, nearly spilling drinks.
There was a collective sigh, and a silence as everyone contemplated once again the gap between the good idea and its implementation.
Sid looked at Mo. ‘I take it that NHS Central is aware this is another impossible trade-off?’
Mo simply nodded.
“Cue mandatory training on the dangers of cutting back on appointments in order to attend mandatory training?”
‘Cue mandatory training on the dangers of cutting back on appointments in order to attend mandatory training?’ Angel asked rhetorically.
‘What about the issue of staff with autism and ADHD?’ Sid asked.
Mo nodded. ‘Ah yes, interesting. I hadn’t thought of that angle in this.’
‘Go on, Sid, I’m listening too,’ Angel encouraged.
‘Well, let’s say about one per cent of the workforce is autistic and perhaps four per cent have ADHD,’ Sid ventured, ‘the first group are literal, struggle with the abstract such as emotions, and are very resistant to changing routines; the latter group are defined by their inattention and impulsivity. A day’s training isn’t going to resolve all that yet excluding them from the workforce would be discriminatory.’
Mo puffed out his cheeks and straightened up from where he had been leaning. ‘Wow!’ he exclaimed. ‘I think you can be sure NHS Central won’t wish to look under that carpet.’
‘No,’ Angel agreed, ‘and they weren’t even the five per cent I was thinking of. Come on though: clinical meeting! Or else we’ll make you late for safeguarding, Sid.’
‘Ah yes!’ Sid muttered. ‘Our meeting about our shared responsibilities for the most vulnerable that no one else bothers with now. Perhaps that too will need more than mandatory training to resolve.’
Featured photo by Rumman Amin on Unsplash.
