Short on time? Get-yer-ears-on and Roy Lilley will read the eLetter to you... for free!

Let me start by assuring you; I have written every last syllabub of this, myself… and the malaprop is by way of proof. 

Arthur C Clarke said, advance technology was indistinguishable from magic. He may be right? Maybe not. 

Magic is based on deception. When you know how a trick is done, it’s always disappointing.

... understand a spread sheet and you’ve got the basis of just about everything. Binary; if it’s this… do that. If it’s not… do this. 

Managing something by the use of technology can take the grind out of the day, be quicker… and if you define efficient as quicker… then more efficient.

Managing healthcare with the use of technology? We don’t want much. 

It can’t do it because too many people think the management of information by IT is magic and too many other people like the idea of pretending it’s magic.

It can’t do it because we put more energy and effort into how we buy stuff than doing stuff. 

Preserving the magic-circle of procurement, to make sure anyone with a tin-can and a wet-string can play the game, drives up the cost of buying. 

Instead of getting stuff that works that we can all use on day one and drive down the cost of doing it.

If there is any branch of the NHS that really should be tooled-up-to-the-eyeballs it’s the lone worker. 

Making huge decisions about care, on their own; in a run-down apartment, in downtown Down Town, no wifi, dodgy phone signal, no recourse to a second opinion or notes.

The doyens of all matters community nursing, the Queen’s Nursing Institue have just published the upshot of a survey about their members and technology.

If you work in technology and are of a delicate constitution, go and read the Beano. What follows is not for you.

It was an arms-length ‘thing’. Now it’s been stuffed up the back passage of NHSE, as some sort of ‘transformation directorate’. 

New lamps for old. 

We have wasted, squandered, frittered away billions with digital this-n-that and all we’ve had is disasters and dud stuff…

… ‘digital’; bogged down, group-thunked, lost its way and can’t understand the basics. 

here, for free.

Dr Paul Lambden

'There are virtually no genetic causes of weight gain.'

>> Branding agency hired to help ‘cultivate new personality’ for NHSE - I really thought this was a joke. It's not. For goodness sake, just read this. At a time when the NHS faces its historic biggest challenges, a hostile government, endless strikes, waiting lists queueing around the block and no money, who, for heaven's sake, thinks it's a good idea to fiddle about with this and pay for it. Time for a taxi for Ms Pritchard. If she has time to think about her 'image', it's time to look in the mirror. Time for a practical, hands-on, get stuff-done leader. Time for a change at the top. If this is about NHSE getting priorities right... for me and the thousands slogging their guts out, delivering more for less... it's backfired big-time. I'm not even sure the Board should stay.

⬇️ For more news, scroll down

This is what I'm hearing, unless you know different. In which case, tell me, in confidence.

>> I'm hearing -  NHS waiting lists are unlikely to fall significantly in 2023... well that's going to put a dent in NHSE's 'image'.

>> Woman, 82, declared dead at nursing home is found breathing three hours later at funeral home - US story.

>> Trust leaders ‘welcome rigour’ of A&E target, says new NHSE director - this is a clear as mud to me and seems to have total disregard for the fact social care is in bits. The message seems to be, don't get old.