31 March 2022 – Mental Health Network webinar – governance during the COVID-19 pandemic

This week’s webinar opened with a discussion about the public satisfaction with the NHS survey, which shows the lowest levels of satisfaction in 25 years, and the publication of the Ockenden report about maternity services at Shrewsbury and Telford Hospital NHS Trust, which has prompted widespread and deep dismay throughout the NHS.

Overheard during the webinar: “A key element regarding public satisfaction is workforce. We face large gaps in filling ranks. Public satisfaction with the NHS is conditioned by its ability to provide the people to provide services. I cannot see how public satisfaction can be improved without improving workforce and there is still a significant issue with this, no matter how imaginative local solutions may be.”

“Expectation against experience is also an issue, along with dishonesty and a lack of integrity in facing reality. People talk to each other about, for example, GP experiences and find that there are a variety of experiences, which in turn creates anxiety and uncertainty, and can translate to a perception of jobs not being done properly and system failure. The public want to ensure the NHS is protected and have a recollection of how it has always been. ICSs must be honest on what is needed to deliver quality healthcare.”

“It’s frustrating that we can’t develop a workforce plan for the largest employer in the country. […] A career structure for social care and the clinical side of the NHS has to come from the centre. We are doing the best we can locally for health and social care workforce planning, with no support from above.”

“There is an issue in the public thinking that GPs are part of the NHS, when they are not, and that there is still no mandate for managing primary care effectively. Due to commissioning over the years, the provision arm of the NHS has been fragmented and the public purse has been used to fund the private sector, public sector and social sector. There is no continuity of standards of care due to the fragmentation over the years. There’s a need to realign through collaborative working and to know what is meant by collaboration, partnership and the NHS.”

[During a discussion about the Nolan Principles]: “We live in a political system where political leaders are a symbol of the system’s commitment to probity and good governance. When there is a government that ignores the Nolan principles and trashes the structure upon which the principles were built, there is a real issue in pretending one part of the system is pure, when other leading parts have abandoned Nolan. In a context where people perceive corruption, there is a real problem in the public perception of all parts of the public sector.”

These meetings are by invitation only. For further details, visit our events page.

If you have any comments, questions or suggestions about these webinars, please contact: events@good-governance.org.uk