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From Roy Lilley
As we nudge our way out of what, by any standards, has not been the health and care services' finest year, there's some stuff we would do well to leave behind. Consigned to the bin-bag of history.

It won't be easy. Some of it is entrenched, engrained and become part of the waft and web of healthcare thinking.

Stinkin-thinkin...

We have to stop... stomp on it. Give them the elbow, just don't join in. Kill 'em off... four things. Stop them in their tracks.

The first is a word.

The ugliest word in the NHS lexicon... 'engagement'. I don't want to 'engage' with people, do you? I want to talk to them. Better still; listen to them. I want to hear their views, have a conversation, ask what they think.

Engage is what gear boxes do, to drive an engine and what old telephones sound like when someone else is talking. People who are interested in other people's ideas don't 'engage'. They have a chat.

If they have something to explain, clarify, demonstrate, make a case for... they do it, face to face, eyeball to eyeball. Politely, with passion and purpose. 'Engage' is for people who can't make eye contact, shift around in their seat, shuffle papers, do jargon-speak and have forgotten how to be a human being.

If you've got the word 'engagement' in your job title, you're working for the wrong people. Try substituting conversation.

Second; 'stake-holder'. If I have to explain it you'll never get it...

It's all of the above with knobs-on. We don't have stake-holders. We have; colleagues, partners, friends, patients, relatives, carers and people who depend on us.

If you have 'stake-holder' in your job title, you are definitely working for the wrong people! Try partners.

Next; 'sustainability'. I keep hearing the question; 'is the NHS sustainable'. It's the sort of malarkey we can do without. Sustainability conferences, committees, round table discussions, the Select Committees and all the rest... just feeds the beast.

People with stinkin' thinkin' organise them and people who can't think at all attend them... for group sessions of brainlessness. People who have no feel for history, no vision for the future and no passion for the task in hand.

You are not like that, are you?

More, or less, we are putting about the same percentage of GDP into the NHS as we did in year 2000. We will have, as near as makes no difference, flat line funding from 2010 to 2020.

The solution is simple; commit, bully, challenge and beat the brains out of the politicians until they get NHS funding back to the EU average, preferably by the end of this Parliament... and keep it there.

Shame them, look at their voting record, write to them, hector them and remind them... they work for us. Boycott events they speak at. Empty chair them. Disgrace them.

And yes, we can afford it... if we want to.

It's not difficult. The Office of Budget Responsibility could superintend it in their spare time.

Yes, the average will fluctuate, I get that but I think we can afford to move ourselves off the bottom of the average, below Slovenia.

Finally; if you hear the phrase 'the NHS must...' and its unaccompanied by the the words 'and here's how'... walk out. See it written... burn the page.

The NHS 'must' do this or that. The NHS 'must' treat more people in the community, 'must' keep people out of hospital, 'must' reduce admissions, 'must' cut the flow in A&E. Must make greater use of technology, must use data, must be kinder, must change... must, must but never 'this is how'.

If you hear a talking head say 'must', stand up and shout 'HOW'!

They won't know. It's their kind of stinkin-thinkin that got us into this mess and they have no idea how to get us out.

Can we make this the last few days of 'stake-holder engagement because the NHS must be more sustainable'?

Can we make a start on; let's talk to each other about doing our bit to hand on the fabulous legacy that is the NHS by making sure we pay for it sensibly?

Thanks for everything you did last year, please come and do it again in 2017. Share your good stuff, show us what good looks like and bin the stinkin' thinkin'.
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