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I’m sitting at the computer screen wondering if it’s worth taking up your time.
Should I bother writing?
Is it worth putting pen-to-paper?
I’m talking about Charmer’s speech, yesterday about… well, I’m not sure what it was about.
I think he was trying to spell out what he was going to do to fix our broken Blighty. To be honest, I’m no clearer...
... there was no clarity and clarity is important for three reasons;
- To align common objectives, so people know what they are supposed to be doing
- Makes for decisive actions, without the need to constantly refer back, increasing efficiency and productivity
- Fosters trust and confidence, showing the leader is reliable and has a clear plan and worth following
I’m not sure we got any of that.
What we did get was a concoction of three foundation commitments, five missions and the latest… six milestones.
A total of fourteen things.
If you add the 14 to the 67 reviews and task-forces that HMG has currently underway, it's 81 something-or-others that are priorities...
... which of course is at best a paradox, worse an oxymoron and in plain English a rat’s nest.
In case you missed it, the six new milestones, that are looking more like millstones from the manifesto to cross, mark-off, pass, to do (dunno) by the next election are;
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Higher living standards. Measured how? Starmer said; ‘people will know when they are better off’.
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1.5m new homes built. I make that about 6,944 a week. As far as I can see we are doing about 987 a week.
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Safer streets, meaning 13,000 more police, or 50 a week extra, recruited, trained, on the beat and feeling collars.
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Best start for the under 5ys, over half our families with under fives suffer with mental health and poverty.
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Clean-power by 2030, which might be a statement of ambition, might mean 95%, or a hundred percent. I can’t make it out.
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Waiting list back to the 18 week target...
...we’ve done that, and you know; the Institute for Fiscal Studies says there’s an average monthly referral rate of 1.69 million. We also know about 1.6 million patients leave the waiting list, monthly.
That is consistent efficiency but...
... there is no extra capacity to improve productivity and do more. Half of NHS staff are currently working unpaid overtime and there’s no money to invest in the technology to ease admin, flow and throughput.
What was the point of this performance?
Maybe his ‘advisors’ realise his rating are in the gutter and to rerun the election campaign, for that is what this is, campaigning, might perk them up and rally the troops.
Maybe his ‘advisors’ really think this constitutes some kind of a plan and don’t realise, if you don’t know how to deliver an outcome, and explain it, you shouldn’t be doing the job.
If the ‘plan’ for the NHS is anything to go by...
... I can tell you there was one in February 22. Good luck with that.
As the populist sage, management guru and champion boxer, Mike Tyson said,
'a plan is fine until someone punches you in the face'.
Right now the NHS is being pummelled...
... by ambulance delays, already almost double those last year.
... over a thousand beds are occupied with people suffering from influenza.
..,. on average there’ll be about 13,000 people in hospital beds, medically fit to go home but we all know social care is having problems with care packages to assist discharge.
This is important… as medical beds fill up, the overspill goes into surgical beds, that are primarily used for waiting list patients. To make space, waiting list patients get cancelled and put back on the list.
And, of course, Charmer made no mention of fixing social care…
... which is the key to sorting almost everything in the NHS and to huge numbers of people not needing NHS care because they are safe and sound in the community.
Charmer’s speech, plus questions took about an hour and a half and I was left feeling I’d been mugged.
I’m already overdrawn on my threescore years and ten and I don’t take kindly to having whatever time I have left, being filched, pilfered, nicked by a charlatan pretending to know what he’s doing.
If you’re a Labour voter, I think you’d be in your rights to demand yer money back.
This is was no more a foundation, or a mission, or a milestone than a fortune cooky.
Charmer has to do better, he needs better advisors, real world planning and measurable outcomes.
He can’t keep campaigning forever.
Have the best weekend you can.
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