St Thomas Centre Ardwick Green Manchester M12 6FZ
10am – 3pm Friday 16th May 2008
New Public Management has led to an increase in measuring and controlling things that can be measured. Targets have played an important part in raising the standards of service delivery, but they are a pretty blunt way of giving patients what they want. They tend to overshadow things which are important but not easily measured – like the quality of nursing care. We have generated a large bureaucracy to collect numbers.
” A ‘caring bureaucracy’ is a contradiction in terms (a reality that applies both to the way that bureaucracy treats its own staff as well as to those who turn to it in the hope of assistance). The system as a whole lacks compassion – it is experienced as being impersonal and fails to recognise and to value the uniqueness and the individuality of those who turn to it for help.”
How can we move towards a system where staff and patients can value what is important rather than what can be measured?
Professor Steve Harrison National Primary Care Research and Development Centre.
Dr Hannah Cooke School of Nursing, Midwifery and Social Work The University of Manchester.
Professor Paul Stanton Northumbria University. Paul is founder and CEO of Southminster Consultancy Associates (SCA). Until April 2008 when the NHS Clinical Governance Support Team (CGST) closed, Paul Stanton was Director of NHS Board Development.
Dr Ray Thomas, Faculty of Social Sciences, Open University. Ray’s talk.
Experiencing the NHS as a Patient – Clare Wenger