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Optics… all about how does it look?
There are four key things.
If people view you negatively, not much will change it. It’s called bias. In politics it means there’s not much Rishi Sunak can do to get elected in East Ham or Sunderland.
Understanding. You may be doing something for perfectly understandable reasons but if people don’t understand your reasons, yer sunk.
They don’t wear your shoes… can’t empathise.
Time and timing. Not everyone has the time or inclination to look at the detail, so first impressions count and timing is important, get it wrong and opportunity is lost.
You never get a second chance to make a first impression.
Grasp. Don’t assume people are across the issues, the detail, they've grasped the facts.
If they don’t know what you know… how will they know?
Connect. Like it or not, the main channel of communication is no longer the six o’clock news on the telly. It’s social media.
Finding out what interests people is easy, try Google Trends… response is instant. Followers influenced by the million.
People know more, quicker. Knowledge has been democratised.
The upshot of all this is, ‘what does it look like’. What are the optics?
Yesterday, at Number10, the PM ‘hosted’ another meeting of the great and good from the NHS. He’s worried about winter and quietly, very likely fretting about, delivering on his promise to cut waiting.
What do the optics tell us? The words ‘meeting’ and ‘Number10’ usually come linked by the word ‘crisis’.
This is the second DH-NHS, Number10 summit. Reassuring? Nothing much came of the last one. What are the chances for this one?
The meeting is being sold as;
... the big brains are getting together to sort something out.
Optics... they are entirely different;
... the DH+, have got themselves into a mess, the Cabinet don’t trust Bully-Boy to fix it. The big guns are brought in.
It's a showcase event. They could have met anywhere and probably do. Number10 as the venue, the back-drop, ups-the-optics... implies crisis, urgent, drastic.
Optics...
... does Number10 have confidence in system managers to pull through winter?
NHSE don’t look like they’ve persuaded ministers there’s a rock-solid plan to deal with what might be one of the toughest winters, ever.
Optics?
For some, the PM will look engaged, helpful and ‘across-it’.
For others, like he has little faith in the ability of health ministers or NHSE to get their act together…
… in which case he should shuffle the ministerial team.
The fact he hasn’t plays to the, ‘he is weak and undecided’ narrative that Labour are putting about.
Optics...
...Number10 must have seen NHSE's winter plans and concluded they're not workable. It looks like they are asking; is the executive leadership, the Board on top of things? Can they cope or is the situation starting to overwhelm them?
There are a lot of moving parts.
The strikes are playing hell with secondary care and the PM has to be told;
‘Pull yer finger out Rishi, fix the strikes, it’s what you’re paid to do.’
The workforce has been neglected, the plan will be years in the fulfilling... and deskilling the professions will bring the roof in.
The funding doesn’t work. Intermediate care is nigh-on unaffordable. ICBs are mired in debt... reduced to pretending to look after people in a virtual world because they know they’re about to be overwhelmed by the real world.
Social care is in the mother-of-all shambles. The salmagundi of policies, guidance and fixes needs demolishing and proper, sustainable policies put in place.
The outcome of the round-table? The optics...
... maybe more money, more ambulances, more private sector contracts and a statement that won’t deal with the root-cause… capacity....
because...
... there isn’t enough capacity and there isn’t enough time to create enough capacity.
How can the outcome be any different?
Optics...
It looks like a loss of confidence in the DH+ and NHSE.
If this is true an erosion in confidence in the leadership will have a very damaging impact on Trust leaders and staff, who will ask; who runs the NHS... DH+, NHSE, Number10's policy advisors... anyone?
Optics can create a truth or an illusion. Political optics are all about reputation management and that's all about illusion. This meeting is all about just that...
... illusions…that;
- Government is philanthropic and has money of its own.
- Government can do things other than force us to obey laws.
- Government processes don’t come with deadweight overhead cost.
- Government spending our money fixes everything.
- Government is wiser than you are.
- Only government can solve problems.
… and an illusion that from a round table in Downing Street, Rishi can run the NHS.
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