- Paperback: 124 pages
- Publisher: Civitas (10 Aug 2009)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1906837090
- ISBN-13: 978-1906837099
- Product Dimensions: 21.2 x 13.8 x 1.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 531,075 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Product Description
Product Description
In recent years, NHS reform in England has focused on stimulating competition between providers and increasing choice for patients. Many NHS organisations are now as much businesses as they are public bodies; if they fail to design services around patients and meet their needs, they should start to lose custom as well as incurring the wrath of government. But just how good are they at satisfying their customers the patients? Could these NHS businesses, for example, survive in a genuine marketplace? In 2008 Donald R. Keough, the former president of the Coca-Cola Company, published an influential book, The Ten Commandments of Business Failure, in which he argued that, while success is hard to predict, businesses that fail share common characteristics: they stop taking risks; become inflexible; isolate themselves; assume infallibility; play the game close to the foul line; don t take time to think; put their faith in outside consultants; love bureaucracy; send mixed messages; are afraid of the future; and lose their passion for work. Far too many businesses in the NHS are doing all of these things, with the results Keough described. They put patients last, not first, as successful businesses would do. Merely creating more autonomous organisations and giving them commercial incentives is only part of the solution. Across the NHS, a change in culture is required. For now, NHS businesses remain enmeshed in state bureaucracy, inclined to dance to the tune of their shareholders the government and Whitehall rather than starting with what patients want and need. They must do all in their power to break this stranglehold, while government must stop interfering and let them put patients first.
About the Author
Dr Peter Davies BSc (Hons), MBChB (Leeds 1989), Diploma in Primary Health Care, FRCGP, is a GP Principal at Keighley Road Surgery, Illingworth, Halifax. He also serves as a GP appraiser for Calderdale PCT, is Chair of the Yorkshire Faculty of The Royal College of General Practitioners and is a Yorkshire Faculty representative on the RCGP Council. He writes regularly for medical publications, including the British Medical Journal and the British Journal of General Practice. The views expressed in this publication are his own. James Gubb is Director of the Health Unit at Civitas. After graduating in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from St John s College, Oxford, he worked briefly in criminal law, before joining Civitas in June 2006, where he has worked on European issues and health policy. His previous publications on health include Just how well are we? , Why are we waiting? and Checking up on Doctors: a review of the Quality and Outcomes Framework . He is a regular contributor to print, broadcast and healthcare media.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a short and quite simple book, I read it in an afternoon. Using the very pithy, simple to understand 'rules of business failure' formulated by a world-beating businessman (former CEO of Coca Cola), the authors take us step-by-step through the almighty failings of a public service that was 're-engineered' to work on business principles.
Of course, running the NHS as a business - or a series of interlinked 'businesses' - was never going to work. But the political masters never had any better ideas, having lost sight of the Welfare State's original aspirations and principles. As a result, the NHS is leaking £billions and, far worse, hundreds of thousands of patients are injured and even killed by these systemic failings. The hundreds of thousands of patients injured (figures from National Patient Safety Agency) by the NHS require costly additional treatment further on down the line.
That's not to say that individuals are at fault (although some are of course). There are many NHS staff who do their best to make things better, but the 'business' model (as applied bullyingly by NHS bosses) simply isn't suited to the provision of a public service whose expenditure and outcomes are so controlled by politicians and their short-termist fads and votecatchers.
Every household in the country needs this book. As a population we need to separate the fact from the aspirational delusion/illusion that we have a 'world-class', 'envy-of-the-world' healthcare system. We do not. Every family has an NHS horror story. We need to wake up and face the problems, as these authors encourage us to do. As they say, only then can we begin to rebuild a much better service together. The remedies are not difficult or unpalatable. In fact, they've rather pleasant: the prescription is to treat human beings - both patients and staff - with respect and honesty, support and trust their judgments, help them to deliver the best care they can and remove all obstacles from patients as they work at healing.
Of course, running the NHS as a business - or a series of interlinked 'businesses' - was never going to work. But the political masters never had any better ideas, having lost sight of the Welfare State's original aspirations and principles. As a result, the NHS is leaking £billions and, far worse, hundreds of thousands of patients are injured and even killed by these systemic failings. The hundreds of thousands of patients injured (figures from National Patient Safety Agency) by the NHS require costly additional treatment further on down the line.
That's not to say that individuals are at fault (although some are of course). There are many NHS staff who do their best to make things better, but the 'business' model (as applied bullyingly by NHS bosses) simply isn't suited to the provision of a public service whose expenditure and outcomes are so controlled by politicians and their short-termist fads and votecatchers.
Every household in the country needs this book. As a population we need to separate the fact from the aspirational delusion/illusion that we have a 'world-class', 'envy-of-the-world' healthcare system. We do not. Every family has an NHS horror story. We need to wake up and face the problems, as these authors encourage us to do. As they say, only then can we begin to rebuild a much better service together. The remedies are not difficult or unpalatable. In fact, they've rather pleasant: the prescription is to treat human beings - both patients and staff - with respect and honesty, support and trust their judgments, help them to deliver the best care they can and remove all obstacles from patients as they work at healing.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is what the government has done to the NHS by using it as a political football. The endless changes have been costly by expanding middle management without any benefit to direct patient care. This book should be read by every politician.
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