Overpaid managers have sapped the NHS of morale and expertise
SIR – No one who has worked in the NHS will be surprised at General Sir Gordon Messenger’s remarks on how it has drifted into its present lamentable situation (report, February 6).
I worked in the NHS for more than 40 years, 34 of them in general practice. The lack of leadership at the highest level meant that most of us felt we were working in a vacuum. Successive health secretaries seemed only to be making a name for themselves by imposing innovations that were often counterproductive.
At regional and local levels there was no noticeable coordination in planning. Repeated redrawing of boundaries led to confusion and a waste of resources. Recurrent reorganisations caused employment uncertainties and lowered morale. Emphasis on irrelevant data-gathering distracted clinicians from clinical care. Communication was either nonexistent or vaguely threatening.
We now have a plethora of overpaid managers supervising the sending of confusing and contradictory letters to long-suffering patients. Why does nobody think of asking those of us who worked in the NHS how to improve it? Dr Rob Caird
Greywell, Hampshire
SIR – If the country has anything left to be proud of, it must surely be the military and anything it organises – most recently events following the death of Queen Elizabeth II.
General Sir Gordon Messenger makes clear-sighted suggestions for how to address the deep-rooted mismanagement of our precious but broken NHS. I have worked clinically in the NHS for more than 40 years and seen many meaningless and expensive “reorganisations” of trusts, clinical commissioning groups and integrated care boards – all of which fail. Is now not the time to hand over to people who really know how to manage?
Emma Isworth Tenterden, Kent
SIR – I have spent the past 14 days visiting a patient in hospital. I see a five-day-a-week operation, with nothing progressing at weekends.
Not once did I see a senior manager visit the ward to observe and encourage the nurses and assistants and to question the dearth of staff and progress, especially at weekends.
Building an improvement strategy in any business begins with observing and understanding the operation on the shop floor.
Jim White
Stroud, Gloucestershire
SIR – Charles Moore (Comment, February 7) writes of the hypocrisy of NHS hospital managers as regards net zero aims. It would be helpful if they turned down thermostats in the non-inpatient areas, such as their own offices and outpatients. In the hospital where I was a consultant, in midwinter I could see the steam rise from waiting patients in their overcoats. Colleagues would change into scrubs to avoid being too hot.
Stephen Bryan