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I didn’t manage to watch the first programme that Sir Gerry Robinson did to review the current status of things at Rotheram General Hospital.

However, I did manage to watch and review “Can Gerry Robinson Fix The NHS?” second programme. It made compelling TV.

We had Gerry Robinson, business guru, up against NHS  consultants and hospital management. I wonder who’ll win…

I noted some thoughts I had during Episode 2:

• Status quo seems to be preferred by almost everyone in the Hospital (which is one of the good NHS ones)
• They’re clever people with good ideas who discuss them to death and can’t implement them
• There are just too many fiefdoms, from consultants, nurses, theatre staff, porters and everyone else
• Consultants are not managed, at all - not even by their peers

Three points in particular made me laugh

1. When a group of consultants met up with Gerry one noted that the hospital management were dealing with doctors, some of whom, had several degrees. Like degrees can actually give you the ability to manage yourself out of a paper bag?
2. When the chief executive was asked if he could recruit two members of staff to get things going he said something along the lines of could we get a “little proposal” done? Why? You’re the person the bucks stops with. Can you make a decision or not?
3. A consultant wanted to create their own mini-hospital within the hospital with their own waiting area, theatre, porters and nursing staff. If every consultant did that the hospital costs would sky rocket. At a company I worked at (which will remain nameless) a number of managers wanted their own IT staff, HR staff and other staff - and of course they didn’t get it. Because it just doesn’t make sense.

When I was in the NHS they’d just had the Griffith report (1983) which had recommended recruiting outside industry managers to run things. It didn’t work because industry managers are used to staff doing what they’re told or they can sack them. That just can’t happen in the NHS - or can it?

In the end no one wins and the poor taxpayer picks up the tab yet again for more consultants to try and get the NHS working effectively.

Tonight we’ll see whether Sir Gerry manages to get some of the things that were suggested up and running, or not.

PS BBC this series should have been on Broadband replay. So all NHS staff and Ministers can watch it.

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