It sounds like there’s a dose of musical chairs going on with the Sloven executive. Sigh. Word in the shed is that Sandra Grant, who does summat and goes back to the olden days with Katrina Percy, is off for a six month secondment while Chris Gordon, Chief Operating Officer (COO) and Director of Patient Safety, is apparently heading to NHS Improvement for 12 months as an improvement director. [I know…]
In the NHS (unlike much of the commercial sector) it appears when you fail at exec level you simply get moved around in a never ending chess like game. Only one in which the board is so worn the squares are no longer visible and the grubby pieces have been handled so often they’re unrecognisable. And there are no ‘rules’. Just fakery and nonsense played by overly paid, under qualified (in real terms) bods who share a common language, code and cloak of protective armour invisible to the rest of us (who pay their over inflated salaries).
I can remember Tim Smart, the newly, NHS Improvement, appointed interim Sloven chair (the Flash of yesteryear) at the My Life My Choice meeting. Tapping his nose and saying with much gravitas:
Just remember Sharon Shoesmith…
Effectively stopping any discussion about anything.
So, two or three months on from the “action” taken by NHS Improvement in response to repeated evidence of Sloven board failings, where are we exactly? And what did “Remember Sharon Shoesmith…” mean?
Well. Crap all to the Shoesmith question. That was probably part of Smart’s briefing from NHS Improvement… “Just mention Shoesmith when anyone asks a dodgy Q“.
The board got the all clear from (the previously failing) Smart on the basis of fuck knows what. The consistently underwhelming (at best) CEO was removed of operational duties and told to focus on strategy. The COO has gone to NHS Improvement and will only work 2 days a month on Sloven operations. And Grant who, after a quick google, is Director of People and Communications, is off for six months. Blimey. Who is keeping this leaky boat afloat in the land of Solent Lee?
Meanwhile, in addition to the salary/pension scandal, financial irregularities are blasted across the news. Failing, upon failing.
NHS Improvement… I can’t help thinking the question Shaun Picken from My Life My Choice put to Katrina Percy at the January board meeting is relevant here:
Katrina, why didn’t you ask for help? You clearly need it.
mydaftlife 
NHS Improvement sounds a lot like Orwell’s Ministry of Truth. Set up to do the very opposite of it’s misleading moniker.
Can anyone tell me what NHS Improvement have improved so far in the NHS?
It sounds like another wheeze to keep their mates in power no matter how incompetent they are.
Your blogs and tweets are a real education Sara – I’ve been complaining about musical chairs for failing and abusive managers and practitioners in Wales for years. When I spoke to people in England I was constantly told that it was only happening in north Wales – I knew this wasn’t true and you’ve now produced the evidence. This phenomenon is rife throughout the NHS/medical establishment across the whole UK. As far as I can see the only difference between Wales and England is that in England the salaries involved are even bigger and some of the people involved have even more powerful networks to protect them/find them new positions when their wrongdoing is exposed. You also seem to have more whistleblowers in England – everyone in north Wales knows just how serious some of the wrongdoing has been yet there’s not a peep out of anyone…
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