We all want a healthcare system that is fit for purpose.
One which can deliver diagnosis, treatment and prognosis where it is needed, when it is needed, with empathy and at an affordable cost.
One that achieves intended outcomes without unintended harm – either physical or psychological.
We want safety, delivery, quality and affordability … all at the same time.
And we know that there are always constraints we need to work within.
There are constraints set by the Laws of the Universe – physical constraints.
These are absolute, eternal and are not negotiable.
Dr Who’s fantastical tardis is fictional. We cannot distort space, or travel in time, or go faster than light – well not with our current knowledge.
There are also constraints set by the Laws of the Land – legal constraints.
Legal constraints are rigid but they are also adjustable. Laws evolve over time, and they are arbitrary. We design them. We choose them. And we change them when they are no longer fit for purpose.
The third limit is often seen as the financial constraint. We are required to live within our means. There is no eternal font of limitless funds to draw from. We all share a planet that has finite natural resources – and ‘grow’ in one part implies ‘shrink’ in another. The Laws of the Universe are not negotiable. Mass, momentum and energy are conserved.
The fourth constraint is perceived to be the most difficult yet, paradoxically, is the one that we have most influence over.
It is the cultural constraint.
The collective, continuously evolving, unwritten rules of socially acceptable behaviour.
Improvement requires challenging our unconscious assumptions, our beliefs and our habits – and selectively updating those that are no longer fit-4-purpose.
To learn we first need to expose the gaps in our knowledge and then to fill them.
We need to test our hot rhetoric against cold reality – and when the fog of disillusionment forms we must rip up and rewrite what we have exposed to be old rubbish.
We need to examine our habits with forensic detachment and we need to ‘unlearn’ the ones that are limiting our effectiveness, and replace them with new habits that better leverage our capabilities.
And all of that is tough to do. Life is tough. Living is tough. Learning is tough. Leading is tough. But it energising too.
Having a model-of-effective-leadership to aspire to and a peer-group for mutual respect and support is a critical piece of the jigsaw.
It is not possible to improve a system alone. No matter how smart we are, how committed we are, or how hard we work. A system can only be improved by the system itself. It is a collective and a collaborative challenge.
So with all that in mind let us sketch a blueprint for a leader of systemic cultural improvement.
What values, beliefs, attitudes, knowledge, skills and behaviours would be on our ‘must have’ list?
What hard evidence of effectiveness would we ask for? What facts, figures and feedback?
And with our check-list in hand would we feel confident to spot an ‘effective leader of systemic cultural improvement’ if we came across one?
This is a tough design assignment because it requires the benefit of hindsight to identify the critical-to-success factors: our ‘must have and must do’ and ‘must not have and must not do’ lists.
H’mmmm ….
So let us take a more pragmatic and empirical approach. Let us ask …
“Are there any real examples of significant and sustained healthcare system improvement that are relevant to our specific context?”
And if we can find even just one Black Swan then we can ask …
Q1. What specifically was the significant and sustained improvement?
Q2. How specifically was the improvement achieved?
Q3. When exactly did the process start?
Q4. Who specifically led the system improvement?
And if we do this exercise for the NHS we discover some interesting things.
First let us look for exemplars … and let us start using some official material – the Monitor website (http://www.monitor.gov.uk) for example … and let us pick out ‘Foundation Trusts’ because they are the ones who are entrusted to run their systems with a greater degree of capability and autonomy.
And what we discover is a league table where those FTs that are OK are called ‘green’ and those that are Not OK are coloured ‘red’. And there are some that are ‘under review’ so we will call them ‘amber’.
The criteria for deciding this RAG rating are embedded in a large balanced scorecard of objective performance metrics linked to a robust legal contract that provides the framework for enforcement. Safety metrics like standardised mortality ratios, flow metrics like 18-week and 4-hour target yields, quality metrics like the friends-and-family test, and productivity metrics like financial viability.
A quick tally revealed 106 FTs in the green, 10 in the amber and 27 in the red.
But this is not much help with our quest for exemplars because it is not designed to point us to who has improved the most, it only points to who is failing the most! The league table is a name-and-shame motivation-destroying cultural-missile fuelled by DRATs (delusional ratios and arbitrary targets) and armed with legal teeth. A projection of the current top-down, Theory-X, burn-the-toast-then-scrape-it management-of-mediocrity paradigm. Oh dear!
However, despite these drawbacks we could make better use of this data. We could look at the ‘reds’ and specifically at their styles of cultural leadership and compare with a random sample of all the ‘greens’ and their models for success. We could draw out the differences and correlate with outcomes: red, amber or green.
That could offer us some insight and could give us the head start with our blueprint and check-list.
It would be a time-consuming and expensive piece of work and we do not want to wait that long. So what other avenues are there we can explore now and at no cost?
Well there are unofficial sources of information … the ‘grapevine’ … the stuff that people actually talk about.
What examples of effective improvement leadership in the NHS are people talking about?
Well a little blue bird tweeted one in my ear this week …
And specifically they are talking about a leader who has learned to walk-the-improvement-walk and is now talking-the-improvement-walk: and that is Sir David Dalton, the CEO of Salford Royal.
Here is a copy of the slides from Sir David’s recent lecture at the Kings Fund … and it is interesting to compare and contrast it with the style of NHS Leadership that led up to the Mid Staffordshire Failure, and to the Francis Report, and to the Keogh Report and to the Berwick Report.
Chalk and cheese!
So if you are an NHS employee would you rather work as part of an NHS Trust where the leaders walk-DD’s-walk and talk-DD’s-talk?
And if you are an NHS customer would you prefer that the leaders of your local NHS Trust walked Sir David’s walk too?
We are the system … we get the leaders that we deserve … we make the choice … so we need to choose wisely … and we need to make our collective voice heard.
Actions speak louder than words. Walk works better than talk. We must be the change we want to see.