That was the week that was…..

As the topical satirical programme of the 1960s was called (no I am not old enough to remember, I just saw a programme about it recently).

No Thursday Thirteen for me this week, as I didn’t have any good ideas or sufficient time to think of any this Thursday, and now suddenly it is Friday! I hardly know where the week has gone, but am pretty glad that it is nearly at an end as I am quite weary. Yesterday I went up to London to meet up with a work colleague and someone who does some work for us on a freelance basis. Both are therapists of the systemic school (there I am sounding like I know what I am talking about, well only vaguely actually), what is interesting is that this leads to a whole different language being spoken over dinner. They are also really enthusiastic people, and that kind of thing tends to rub off, so you come away feeling quite uplifted, though exhausted at the same time because it is like having to translate a foreign language constantly.

Covent Garden, where I met my colleague was heaving with people. Walking around, watching the street entertainers, shopping, sitting outside the many bars and restaurants eating, drinking and generally having a great time. I was a bit early, I had planned a visit to one of my university campuses to go to the library, but discovered that they are closed at 5pm at this time of year. So I sat with my bottle of water and my book for a while till it was time to go back to the tube station to meet Ana. While standing there, a man well into his 50′s approached me and asked me if I was Denise! I replied no, because that is not my name, I was then both amazed and amused when Denise turned out to be at least a foot shorter than me, slightly wider with a silver grey bob haircut. I would suggest that if you are going on a blind date, you check out what she looks like in advance!

Anyway, we walked into china town and a place called Blacks (which happens to be there but isn’t in any way Chinese). This seems to be a private kind of bar / restaurant club and quite an eccentric British kind of place at that. Not sure how you come to belong to it, but it was pretty full of people, young and middle aged and people who seem to visit there frequently. Not sure if such a place could exist in other cities in the world! The food was pretty good though.

All in all, an educational evening and one that didn’t end until I arrived home at midnight. Sadly hubby appears not to have grasped the basics of dishwasher loading, so I have that piece of work to complete this morning. Still it is Friday, and nothing seems too bad on a Friday!

How much information do people really want?

Because if you ask them, they would say, a lot please. There is a general feeling that people at work are not getting enough of the information they think they should have access to. They think that people are holding back on them, keeping them in the dark, rather than there perhaps being a lack of real hard information. Trouble is, when someone comes along and lays the cards on the table, they don’t like it.

Earlier this week we were told the extent of the financial situation our 2 PCTs find themselves in, and what needs to be done to resolve this. Essentially it means that a very large sum of money must be saved and that will mean services and the jobs that go with them will be lost. How many we don’t know, but head count must be reduced and nearly £20 million pounds saved.

People are now more depressed than ever and some are saying perhaps it is better not to know. Classic head in the sand behaviour if you ask me.

Patient services will be affected. People will be prevented from going to hospital, whether they want it or not, and I am afraid that people will get looked after by a bunch of nurses, even nurse practitioners instead of them being under the care of a hospital medical team. Some of this will be good, but some of this willdefinitelyy be bad. People will complain, people may even die for all I know. But never again will people who work in the NHS think they have a job for life.

Thanks to NPS saves lives for the warning sign link, you can make your own here

Nostalgia at its best

Sometimes things affect you in a way you don’t quite expect, and I guess our trip to see Sinatra in London on Saturday night was a bit like that. The show was extremely cleverly put together and choreographed, the big band orchestra and dancers were fabulous. But the main thing for me was seeing the old footage of Frank Sinatra and hearing him sing. Because it brought back extremely fond memories of my own grand parents.

My Grandad fancied himself as a bit of an old romantic and loved to sing songs by both Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby, particularly to my nan and especially when he had drunk a few beers, though he sang at all times of the day and night. Grandad was also a very slim man for his whole life, and as my hubby said he wore the same kind of clothes that Frank wore when on stage for our family gatherings. Hubby and I were both sat thinking the same thing which was slightly spooky but great. I think the effect was helped by us being in the London Palladium a wonderful historical building.

The whole day was great, we headed off on the train in the early afternoon and once we got to the west end, hubby suggested we go to the champagne bar in Selfridges which was extremely pleasant not to mention romantic. Sitting drinking a very nice glass of pink champagne while watching people spend their money! Then we went on to have a meal before wandering around the Oxford Street / Regents street area and then heading off to the Palladium.

Of course hubby is now complaining that he spent too much money, and is mighty glad our anniversary is only once a year. But then if it wasn’t such a trip would hardly feel special.

Doing the right thing

Our PCT and all the NHS trusts around us are in the red and have been so to a greater or lesser degree for some time. At the beginning there was something called the NHS bank, and there was a degree of leniency, after all we were incredibly target driven and meeting targets needs people to do stuff; lots of people. Now the plug has been pulled on credit, a bit like reaching your over draft limit at the bank and the manager saying no more. This means that across the health economy cuts are being put into place. For about 9 months we have had a vacancy freeze and we have all been charged with finding ways of saving money, but now things are about to get more serious, more drastic. So drastic that I and my team, along with the Human Resources department are about to get training on how to career coach people.

In the midst of all this, we have been working on some new documentation to help people through each year up to their appraisal. We have called it the Journey Planner. A hell of a lot of work has gone in to it, and it is pretty good (even if I say so myself and I do). It allows the employee to record their interactions with their manager, reflections on learning, more formal education including mandatory training and finally documents the appraisal. We want to launch this document, after all, people need to have appraisals, and it is a really good piece of work. A colleague knows a real English Lord, she has asked him to come help us launch, he is really happy to do so. The chief exectutive and my own director have agreed to this, but that was before the redundancies which have yet to be announced to those who they will affect were decided upon.

It was suggested to me yesterday that we cannot launch our Journey Planner, we cannot do anything that suggests we are ignoring peoples feelings, that seems as if we are not in touch with reality. When I told this person that we were going to provide a light lunch at the launch (only one hours duration at lunch time) she nearly collapsed in apoplexy. I told her I wasn’t prepared to waste the hours of work we have put into this as this was wasting the trusts money if nothing else was, she said she too had had to shelve things that she had done too. Well that’s ok then!

I am not sure if we will go ahead, I will discuss this with my manager on Monday, but if I am going to be responsible for creating bad feeling, then I want no part of the whole thing. In fact it again makes me wonder just what my place in this mad and crazy system is!

On a happier note, yesterday was my wedding anniversary, we have made it to 22 years and tonight are off to see Sinatra at the London Palladium. More about that in the next day or two.

Thursday Thirteen – 22 June 2006

Thirteen Concerts Julie has been to This kind of follows on from yesterday’s blog when I mentioned the group Madness in passing, so I thought lets go for Thirteen concerts I have been to. I won’t know till I get to the end if I have 13 to mention; this is not planned in advance! My first ever concert was to see Gary Glitter and the Glitter Band. This was glam rock at its finest, and involved a lot of stomping around the stage and pretty heavy beats. The glitter band were pretty good looking if I remember rightly, Gary was, well Gary with big hair and shirt undone to the waist. Sadly, it turns out Gary was really bald and wearing a wig and also that he was a paedophile. Luckily I never was in love with him, and at 11 never got anywhere near him. The concert was great though! When I was first going out with my hubby he took me on a youth group trip to see Cliff Richard. I wasn’t ever into gospel music in a big way, but I liked Cliff, and so was happy to go along. Hubby still maintains to this day that he only ever went to church so he could go to Friday youth group where table tennis was played. But who knows? When we were first married we got the chance to go to a Queen concert at Knebworth Park. This was my first trip to such a massive venue, with something like 100,000 people packed in to this stately house grounds. We lived near by and so walked home after! Queen were fantastic, and we also saw Status Quo who hubby was keen on. On Christmas Eve one year (probably around 1982-3) we saw Toyah Wilcox in concert. I most remember that she ran around in a short skirt and long boots, and had longish straight hair. She spoke (and sang) with a lisp. She does TV now, looks like from the link that she still sings and tours. Whitney Houston was a fantastic singer in the 80′s, a real diva, we saw her at Wembley Arena. It is so sad that she has become such a shadow of her former self. Drugs really do damage lives! M People with lead singer Heather Small were one of our favorite groups in the 1990′s. Heather has a strong and distinctive voice which I really love. Simply Red (lead singer Mick Hucknell) again at Wembley Arena were one of those groups producing music prolifically throughout the 90s. Mick is not much to look at but he has a great voice. In 1987 we went to Wembley Stadium to see Madonna. What a performer she was (and probably still is). She was into wearing those weird bra things back then! The Beautiful South are still one of my favorite bands. We saw them at Brixton Academy which is a small venue and where you can see the group without the need for a big screen! As mentioned at the top of the list we saw Madness a couple of Christmases ago at a venue similar to Brixton. It was a real fun way to start the festive season with plenty of mad dancing! 3 summers ago we saw Robbie Williams at Knebworth. Hubby decided we should park about 3 miles away, much to the disgust of my sister in law. It was a hot afternoon / evening and was just the most fantastic concert. My favorite song Angels had me feeling all goose bumpy – the best yet. Dina Carroll was a great female vocalist we saw in around 1994/5. Hubby took me away to Bournemouth for the weekend and we saw her there. It was the first time I had left teen son who was about 3 or 4 for more than one night as we were away for two. Great memories. Last but by no means least, we saw Leo Sayer at the London Palladium, can’t remember when, but it was a long time ago. He was a singer in the 70s and someone I really liked for his great ballads. One of his songs – when I need you – was played at our wedding. He has recently made something of a come back. Wow made it to 13 after all!! Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

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Things are a bit mad in the NHS right now!

Mad and just too busy for words. The move to our head office seems to have affected my stress levels in quite an adverse way. I am not sure if this is because I have got a bit behind with things due to having no proper office for several days last week, because I have loads more work to do, or if it is because I am just too visible and accessible in my new office. I suspect a combination of the three, and perhaps one or two other reasons I haven’t yet thought up!

Today I attended the most bizarre of meetings. It was just an hour in duration but I came away feeling completely confused. The person calling the meeting had told the rest of us we were meeting for one reason, but when we arrived her agenda seemed completely different. I thought it was me who was confused and somehow missing the point, but no, afterwards it transpired that others were equally in the dark. So guess what? Before I left today, another meeting had been called to sort out the confusions of the previous one!

Rumours now surround us, we are all in no doubt that several million pounds needs to be saved, and the myths, half truths and perhaps lies surround how this will be done. Perhaps services will be cut, but which ones, perhaps people will be made redundant imminently but perhaps that will cost more than it saves after all a lot of people have given a lot of service and would be expensive to get rid of.

I went out for a walk when I got in from work. This had two purposes, one is that I really am intending to get fitter and slimmer and have taken the bull by the horns as it were and changed my diet and upped the exercise levels. The second and best reason this evening was that it has helped clear my head. Now I can get on with cooking dinner, and this evening plan a teaching session for tomorrow that I haven’t had the time to do yet. I just hope tomorrows audience don’t notice the joins!

The picture is a British group called Madness, I have seen them live and they are great. Tomorrow’s TT might be about concerts I have been to, if I have been to 13. I will have to think about that!

For once, a happy family day

I always have the feeling that my family is slightly more prone to disagreements, arguments and general falling out with each other than most. I think this is often more to do with what people don’t say to each other than what they do, and then when something does need to be said it is often blurted out in what may not be the best way. I have two brothers, both with wives and children, any combination of the siblings and their children is usually fine on its own, but throw in my parents who seem to have varying amounts of respect for their daughters (and son) in laws, appear to favour certain grand children over others (though they claim not) add in a good proportion of alcohol which appears to fuel some of these affairs and you have a cauldron constantly threatening to boil over. I have learnt to keep a reasonably clear head at these occasions by volunteering as driver more often than not and even when I am not driving still keeping the alcohol consumption to a minimum (though some times I have let my guard slip and schemed to the evils of alcohol, resulting in my letting my tongue slip inappropriately)!

So yesterday was Fathers day. This family occasion on a (cloudy but humid) summers day was spent in my parents garden and comprised my younger brothers family, my own husband and son, my parents and finally a cousin (male) visiting from New Zealand who these days is something of a fitness freak having been able to drink for both England and New Zealand last time I saw him when he was about 21. I designated myself driver (hubby is a father after all) and cook ( I like doing BBQ if it is not at my own house where I would have no end of other things to do) and I wanted to give my own dad a break. After a great BBQ, with pleasant family type conversation, most of us then went for a very pleasant late afternoon walk before returning for cheese and pudding and then heading home. Unlike some of my other family encounters, this will go down as one where people didn’t feel as is they were avoiding saying the things they wanted to say, although I have to admit we were on good behaviour (with the NZ cousin being there etc). I just wish it could always be like that! Sadly no photos from this occasion (forgot to take camera).

Leaving it to the last minute

I have to admit this is one of my least good attributes, and it isn’t just about doing things just before the deadline, but also allowing myself enough time to get from place to place. I have generally trained myself to try to allow sufficient time to get from place and even arrive early where possible. But sometimes I just try to fit in too much between going onto the next thing. In my defense, yesterday was quite an extraordinary day, and far busier than I could have predicted when I booked my annual contact lens check for 3.05pm. Ok so my working day is to 5pm, but the NHS gets plenty out of me, for example no lunch break, working from home in the evenings and the like, and the optician will only take a couple of annual check bookings per day, making Saturday appointments like gold dust. Getting home early on Friday is just the best thing, not something I always do, in fact it is becoming quite a rare occurrence. But a few weeks ago I booked the appointment, thinking that a 2pm departure wouldn’t be difficult to achieve.

Yesterday turned out to be moving day, so it wasn’t an ordinary day where little happened. Instead the boxes arrived in the new office at 1pm and I set about doing as much as was physically possible in an hour. Except that by the time I was as straight as I wanted to be it was already 2.20pm and I work at least 45 minutes away from home (or my home town where the appointment was to be). Un perturbed I set off as quickly as I could and as I dared in relation to speed limits and at 3pm I was still a good 10 miles away. In my haste to get away from the office, I left my diary (complete with appropriate numbers) on my desk so had to get a colleague on the phone to see if it was worth my while going. They said unless I arrived by 3.10pm then I would need to rebook, and what with parking etc, that was going to be impossible. All this time, I petrol red light was on telling me I needed to fill up as soon as possible, I had visions of breaking down on the motorway and needing to call out someone with a petrol can! Luckily I made it to fill up, but honestly I must get myself better organised in future!

So another new leaf (along with the financial and dieting ones) will have to be turned over; I must allow myself more time to get to places, and I must fill up my car with fuel before I am likely to run out on the motorway! Still if you like risk, and I have to admit I do, then life would be boring if you never had to rush to get anywhere!

Thirteen things you need to know about the world cup

Thirteen Things about The world cup as seen here in England Every day at the moment, there are three football matches to see. Once you get past the first round, the rate of matches will drop off, but the whole thing goes on for about 5 weeks, therefore it is hard to ignore. Many of the matches at the moment are being shown on the BBC, the anchor person for these programmes is Gary Linekar who is a former England hero of football himself. I think he spends the rest of his time sun bathing, since he is turning a kind of deep orangy brown colour! If you read English newspapers or watch the sports news here, you could be forgiven for thinking that England only need one player, and will only win any given match if that one player plays. When that player injured himself a few weeks ago, they almost went into mourning as if that one player had died! At about 10.30 each night both of the terrestrial TV channels with rights to show the world cup have highlights programmes showing exactly the same goals at exactly the same time. Many people in England have taken to flying several St Georges flags outside their houses (this is not something people do all the time), some either have little flags flying from their car windows. These flags often fly off of the cars and can be found by the sides of the roads (probably for recycling purposes). Hubby has spent all week wondering what time to finish work today. The match starts at 5pm (England v Trinidad and Tobago) and he wouldn’t want to miss it. I on the other hand intend to leave work when the match starts because I think I will be the only one on the road by then and will therefore get home in double quick time. Does this make me unpatriotic? The wives and girlfriends of footballers are extremely thin, glamorous beings. They are following their menfolk around Germany as of course they should. Tabloid newspapers use up much of the space not taken with the Wayne Rooney (will he play or won’t he play) saga to fill with stories of their sunbathing and drinking! Avid fans of world cup football should have something called a ‘world cup wall chart’, which they place in a prominent position in their living quarters. This is so a record can be kept of all results and discussions can take place about them. These discussions take place at half time and between matches! So far, even though Arsenal have signed less new players than Chelsea, the new arsenal signings are playing better and scoring more goals then the Chelsea ones (money isn’t everything you know!) The world cup is now interfering with my viewing of big brother, still I have the feeling I am not missing all that much, especially as the BB highlights shows can be watched again later, usually at the same time as the football highlights, but even hubby doesn’t want to watch quite that much football! One of teen son’s friends lives next door to someone displaying 2 very large Brazil flags in their windows. These people are apparently not Brazilian and have probably never been to Brazil. The thing about people from the UK is this, if you come from Scotland or Wales, you very likely will not support England as a team even if you happen to live in England. I guess if I was Scottish and didn’t want to support England I would support the favorites: Brazil. In 1966 England won the World Cup, this is 40 years ago and therefore is too long ago. When we are not having actual matches to watch therefore, all the TV talk is about 1966! I just wish people would get over it, but it seems many of them can’t help it! From all this, you might think I don’t actually like football, actually I do but it does the men in my life no harm for me to keep a slightly cynical edge going! When it is all over, we will have the TV silly season (if this isn’t it) and then there really will be nothing to watch! Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

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The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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Confused? I soon will be.

It seems there is to be no time for a dull moment in my part of the NHS, in fact it is beginning to feel like I am on a roller coaster ride, and a scary one at that. The realities of the financial situation is beginning to hit hard as talk now turns to the decommissioning of services. The very idea that something like a health care service can be considered of no further value, be disbanded and staff made redundant is a new one for us here in the UK. Generally speaking, in the past there has been little of that happening, but I wonder who has decided what is no longer needed? Is it the patients using the service, i.e. are they not using it? Or as I suspect is it the job of a senior manager to say, this is not providing value for money, lets pull the plug.

If this can be done to services providing care to patients, what could it mean to people like me who manage an education and development service? Interesting, but very scary times!

Another part of my own personal roller coaster journey takes place on Friday. Having moved to my current office about 3 months ago, we are now instructed that we are required to move again. The packing cases arrived today and tomorrow I will again pack up my office files. I will do my best to rationalise my belongings again in the hope that I arrive there with less than I currently have. After all, I wouldn’t be surprised if another move takes place before the year is out! The new office has advantages and disadvantages, on the plus side, it is large and contains most people I need to liaise and deal with on a daily basis, it has on site parking and it is in the centre of town. On the negative, it is large, noisy at times and gives little opportunity for privacy, the car park gets full up and parking in town is expensive, it is too near some very nice shops which may need to be avoided for the sake of my new leaf which requires me to act like a spend thrift when I would rather be a shopoholic.

The one good thing about being in the head office though will be that with the roller coaster existence that is happening right now, at least I will be there to catch the news and gossip first hand and that cannot be a bad thing!

I don’t know why I am surprised

Because this is essentially a footballing household, and as Chelsea now owns half the world’s footballers it is inevitable that we will have to watch a lot of the world cup. But yesterday saw 3 matches on our TV, nicely spaced out through the day, all activities carefully times so not to miss the action. When someone like me complains, the answer is (of course) “but the world cup is only every 4 years”. This is true, I cannot argue with this claim, but what about all the qualifying matches, friendlies and then there is the European Cup also every 4 years, but a different 4. The photo is from the Holland match, please note the colour they wear, in my opinion slightly bright, and something that the whole crowd loves to copy. Thank goodness that England wear either all white or red and white!

Don’t misunderstand me, I do actually like football, I just find so much of it too much to cope with. Particularly when you are enjoying the best weather of the year so far (and who knows it could peak today and be back to winter tomorrow) you don’t necessarily want to spend your waking hours watching quite so much of Mexico playing Iran (I think) or Portugal playing Angola. Still I guess it is taking the pressure off of Wayne Rooney and his broken (or mended) toe!

Each result is lovingly recorded on the world cup wall chart on the back of the dining room door, and if either hubby or teen son are unsure of any of the up and coming delights they can spend 10 minutes or so studying it. I wonder if that is the place to pin up teen son’s revision work (he has end of year exams this week).

So another week starts, back to work and as I have been out of the office for 10 days or so, a predicted mountain of emails, another office move to look forward to on Friday and every night we have football to look forward to!

My week

One of the problems with student life, particularly as you hit the mid way point of a two year course is that you have just too much to do. This week that has meant little time for posting to my blog, compounded by the problems blogger seems to have experienced this week. I wouldn’t mind but there was me thinking that it was my lap top / internet connection or something (note to self, get yourself onto a new blog host service soon). This posting therefore will hopefully help anyone remotely interested in what I have been up to, catch up with what has been happening.

Tuesday saw my group of fellow strategic leadership MSc students reconvene at our seat of learning. First thing of note was that there were very few other students there. This made parking simple and meant that moving around campus was great. Apparently all under graduate courses finished for the year a few weeks ago and so there were just post graduate students and staff around. We got down to the craziness which seems to be unique to this course of marking each others work. I was pleased to see that with only one exception we had all improved in quality of essay writing and subsequently in over all marks. Sufficient to say, I was very pleased with my own mark which put me into merit territory. I just need to be less deferential to the authors I use in my work, trouble is that is difficult when you have chosen them because you agree with them!

So just when I thought I would be getting a summer break from studying, they suggest that rather than one 10,000 word assignment by Christmas, we do two 5,000 word pieces, the first of which will be due by 8th September! Bang goes the novel reading I was planning for the summer. The theme we are addressing here is learning and development, and with the course being about leadership, essentially I will need to be looking at leadership development. Luckily this is a subject after my heart and something I am doing a lot of at work.

On Thursday the group had a day out in the metropolis of London (hot and humid in the height of summer, but what can you do?) for visits to Lloyds of London and the Tate Modern. What a contrast, the male dominated insurance capital of the world, to the weird and wacky home of modern art. What views both buildings have of their surroundings, plus we enjoyed a lunch in the Gerkin! Photos will follow!

So on to the weekend and the world cup. Today sees England in their first match, lets hope the hype and expectation of the nation has been worth it and we beat Paraguay today!

Last but by no means least, I have become a contributer at All Blog Stars, a new community blog. It is just a couple of days old so in its infancy but please take a look.

Thursday Thirteen – 8 June 2006

Thirteen Things that annoy or irritate Julie I decided to compile this particular list after the man serving me in my local shop spoke to someone on his mobile (cell) phone throughout the whole transaction he had with me. How rude, I thought. I get very annoyed about people from call centres ringing up, obviously from several thousand miles away, and there being a silence between me picking up the phone and the connection. Last week I even had music played to me as if I was on hold. Well I have news, I am not hanging on the phone on the off chance someone who has rung me to sell me something decides to speak! On the same topic, they ring you from abroad, proporting to be from your bank or some other fiancial institution and then proceed to ask you personal questions like your date of birth and mothers maiden name. I am desperate to ask for theirs back! Something I find extremely disgusting not to mention a health risk is people who spit in the street. There really is no need for such behaviour – use a tissue if you must spit! It is not that I am not interested, or that I don’t want England to win the world cup, but newspaper and TV news people please stop being so obsessed by the broken toe of Wayne Rooney. If he is fit to play he will, if he plays well he will, mean time, give us all a break. Rude people, and particularly children who have not been taught any manners by their parents irritate me. Most of teen son’s friends are extremely polite, sometimes painfully so, but occasionally you get a child in your house who comes across as rude. Sadly my own brothers children are borderline in that respect, though they are reasonably good with me (I think I am scary!) People who complain it is too cold, then that it is too hot when the weather hits 75f for 2 consecutive days annoy me. “Oh it is too humid” or “oh this hot weather is unbearable” they say. No it is not, I spend 9 months of the year waiting for the weather to warm up, stop putting the dampers on it! Very skinny people who eat all day yet never put on weight are pretty irritating. Why can’t I be blessed with that kind of metabolism? I only need to think about eating a cake and the extra 2lb is already there. On a similar topic, I can’t stand it when women of a certain age and weight wear clothes that so obviously do not fit or suit them. If you have rolls of fat, do not let them hang over low rise jeans or a tight skirt and do not wear a short crop type top with it. To wear such clothes you need to be slim and probably look reasonably young. Of course young is a flexible term! Traffic jams. Any one who has read this drivel before will know that I am not good at sitting in traffic jams edging my way home from work. On the same topic I am irritated by drivers who leave it to the last second before merging into a lane and assume (usually rightly) that you will let them in! The head of maths of my son’s school has annoyed me this week. Having accused teen son of not submitting an important piece of work (in January if you please, why wait till May to say anything?) offered proof that the work was submitted, no apology is offered. I will be going to see this man soon, I can assure you. Christmas arriving too early is annoying. I don’t want to buy Christmas decorations in September or Easter eggs in January for that matter. Lastly, I have been trying to finish this before I get up for work, just about made it but I am now running late. My last thing is that I hate running late, so please excuse me if I go now! Please don’t get me wrong, I am not some grumpy old woman type. For one I am not old, but I know what I like and I know even more just what annoys me. Links to other Thursday Thirteens! Please use the autolink and leave a message too.

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The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Be sure to update your Thirteen with links that are left for you, as well! I will link to everyone who participates and leaves a link to their 13 things. Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

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Finances in the NHS (or give us your money)

Great news this morning; the NHS trusts in debt are going to get into more debt this year, yipee!

Our PCT ended the year several million pounds in the red, this is despite extra investment and by getting staff to save several more million through re-using paper clips and freezing vacant posts (or something like it). We are told we can save another 15 million (I think that is what the CEO said at her briefing), through further thriftiness. All of this means that there is now no such thing as a free lunch in the NHS (or my part of it) or indeed a free biscuit.

Education funding has been cut by 10% for this year, that is what we have been told. This is a centrally funded levy (meaning that it originates by levying individual trusts at source, a bit like income tax) used to fund the lions share of education and training for existing staff and for training new practitioners. 10 years or so ago, there was an apparent shortage of doctors, nurses and therapists, so more were recruited for training, and now some of the new practitioners cannot find appropriate jobs and this year training places are being drastically cut. Does that mean that in another 10 years we will have a shortage again causing the cycle to begin again? I know that something like 40% of nurses are over 50, with a similar demographic across other professions, so there is a bit of a time bomb ticking away there, or will we all work to 80, caring for each other in some kind of nursing home for medics?

To be honest I don’t know the answer to all of this. I suspect there has been a great deal of money wasted in the NHS over the years. Some of it caused by ill thought out central budgets (many of them involving IT) but some of it has been caused by our own complacency. Managers going to posh hotels for away days, the use of outside consultants when there has often been perfectly experienced people to undertake projects from within. For some reason there seems a lack of trust in the assessment of a manager from within, when if the same manager were to leave and become a private consultant and charge £1000 per day then suddenly they become the best judge of whatever the problem is. Mind you, that is if the project reaches fruition, because only too often the project is abandoned and something else embarked on instead.

So mean while at the sharp end the lack of money means things like this: we cannot order any stationery without a directors say so, we cannot give people on a training course more than a cup of coffee all day (though I buy biscuits and chocolates myself often), we have to go through telephone bills with a fine toothcomb, we have to justify to members of the board the need for replacement staff to mention but a few. But given all of this, are we happy? Well I for one am still happy in my job, but at times, it is a challenge and for the wrong reasons!

This week I will mostly be….

A student. Yes it is back to my post graduate course for the final ‘learning burst’ of this academic year and tomorrow I will receive the mark for the latest submitted assignment. I have to admit that choosing the subject of leadership to study was an inspired one, because much of the coursework not to mention the topics I have chosen for my assignments have become part of my everyday work. The other useful thing, is the MA Organisational Development course that is being taught alongside, because my role has broadened out this year to be much more about organisational development than strictly being just about how individuals in the workforce are developed.

So today is an annual leave day, and one where there is no teen son hibernating upstairs, what is the appeal of his bedroom that makes him love it so much? He has returned to school, for what is perhaps the most important week of his school career yet. On Thursday he will be taking the first part of his 2 part science GCSE with the other half next year. He says he has been revising, I just hope that he has, after all he has had ample time to do it!

One of the downsides of my course, thought it makes for an interesting time, is that we have to read each others assignments and then feed back to each other about them. This means that today I have three 7000 word essays and two 5000 essays to read but with the weather being so good right now, I wonder if a trip to the local park wouldn’t help make the long read easier? More about the student life as the week goes on.
Leadership
Post+graduate
Teenagers