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The warm moist air was pulled off the ocean and sucked into the dry air from the plains.
There were a few minutes of eerie tranquility as the air stabilised.
All the creatures knew what was coming. Their instincts told them. The air was still. The birds stopped singing and hurried back to their nests.
You could feel the air changing. On the horizon, a roll of dark clouds appeared from nowhere and in seconds fat raindrops made everyone run for cover.
It was the calm before the storm. The mother of all storms.
That’s about it for me. That’s how I’d describe it. Describe where we are now.
The calm before the storm. The clouds rolling in, heralding the storm that whenever it comes, the election will bring in its wake.
There’s an air of procrastination. We know what needs to be done. We know there needs to be an election. Clear the air. We know, short of divine intervention, what the outcome will be.
No one wants to speak, or do, or say. It’s the calm before the storm.
Everyone knows nothing will get better.
There’s a an annihilation in Gaza that no one will speak of.
There is a war in Ukraine, we’ve stopped talking about.
The junior doctors are planning more strikes and there are no talks.
NHS waiting, is waiting to be fixed but no one will speak of the damage to the people who are waiting.
We don’t have enough soldiers, we don’t have enough teachers, nor police officers.
We have more doctors and nurses but the wreck that is the NHS, with it’s collapsing buildings, clapped out IT systems, the demand from sicker-patients and lack of capacity, is no more productive, despite all the efforts.
Parliament is mesmerised with Rwanda ping-pong and there nothing for Members to do.
The hours MPs spend, actually sitting, are the lowest they have been for 25 years. Perhaps we will see the Smoking Bill spark into life?
With no governing to do MPs become ungovernable. Plotting against each other. Factions, groups, whisperers, trouble makers.
Liz Trust trashed the economy, she’s a Tory. That will tag the PM. Things might improve but the damage was done. Inflation might fall, but the prices in the shops will still be higher than they were this time last year.
Charmer walks on egg-shells. Can’t make decisions about Diane Abbot, nor anything else I can see? No financial plan and Silly-Boy Streeting has antagonised the NHS.
Treading water. Dodging the holes in the roads and the gaps in social care.
There’s a calm. A lull. A cyclone. Low pressure around which the winds are circling, gathering energy for the menace that’s to come.
For the NHS? The reality is; expect trivial interventions from the DH+. NHSE will fight a rear guard action over money, how it’s used to bribe and bung to incentivise the outcomes a desperate government needs to see.
Beware, NHSE's vice chair is a Tory donor.
He is calling for a ‘private solution’ to the woes of the NHS. It would be naive to see him as anything but a Trojan horse, or perhaps the Mistle Thrush that sings-on through gales and rain… the ‘stormcock’.
More here.
The NHS will be weaponised by Labour and lionised by Conservatives.
What is there for managers to do?
- Clear priorities for the team, what needs to be done and how. Don't be distracted.
- Be nimble, flexible ready for the swerves and twists a desperate government will use to try to assuage the public and from the opposition desperate to look tough.
- Be honest. There's likely to be bad-news, gossip, threats. Transparency about everything. No secrets.
- Turn the team into a community celebrate successes however small, support each other however big the challenge.
- Learn from each other. Share the good stuff, the things that work. Be quick to dump what doesn’t.
- Stay grounded, this won’t last for ever…
… you are the professionals, you know what you are there for and you will be there long after this lacklustre lot have squabbled, come and gone.
Given a fair wind, after the storm, waiting numbers will come down. There are signs now that they are. The system is getting good at managing strikes. The public will still be supporting the NHS and the NHS will still be there for them.
No storm lasts for ever.
Let them make fools of themselves.
Have the best week you can.
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