Trust chief in ‘Titanic’ warning over state of NHS

HEALTH service bosses could be accused of ‘sitting around the campfire singing Kumbaya as the Titanic sinks’, a top trust chief executive has warned.

They were ‘presiding over a failing NHS’, Milton Keynes University Hospital Foundation Trust boss Joe Harrison claimed.

He was speaking at a meeting organised to mark the publication of the Health Service Journal’s annual ranking of trust chief executives. He said a lack of accountability was causing the quality of services to decline.

‘We’re in danger of all sitting around the campfire singing Kumbaya as the Titanic sinks,’ he said. The reference to ‘ singing Kumbaya’ is an expression sometimes used to imply an unwillingness to confront reality.

His warning follows a report by the Commons health and social care committee that falling staffing levels pose ‘a serious risk to staff and patient safety.’