I am beginning to think that our welfare state, whether we are users of it or employees within it is creating a culture of dependency. Life seems to be about what can be done for you, what your rights are, who you can blame for things. There is very little of the ‘I can do that’ attitude, very little ‘let me know what I can do’, very little ‘I take responsibility’. I spent some time yesterday with a reasonably new manager who is having problems with her team who are testing her out and one of which is being down right unpleasant to her. There seems to be a clear philosophy that they are the staff, they have problems and she as manager should ’sort them out’. Another colleague told a story of her team being disgruntled with the way that their agenda for change pay review had gone for them. She has tried many avenues to put things right, but ultimately she wasn’t their manager when the process started, she has done all she can to make things right but actually they need to take some responsibility. They signed off their job descriptions when they were written and now they could take out action against the employer as similar staff are paid more elsewhere but what they are waiting for is for the manager to do it all for them.Two members of my family are currently undergoing investigations for medical problems. People (and particularly the media) would have you believe that there is no choice of providers, no speedy treatment, and that generally there is a poor service. What they are finding though is that actually the health service in this country is better than you might believe. The trouble is that all too often we are fed information of everything that is not right; a drug people can’t have, a new procedure that can’t be accessed, that healthcare in the UK is provided in a grudging way and that you have to wait for it. That kind of attitude is kind of self perpetuating. If you expect the worst then maybe you will get the worst, or maybe you will be pleasantly surprised.

A patient once refused to be taught to give their own insulin since they had paid their national insurance ’stamp’ and were entitled to have it provided for them. That seems to be the attitude I encounter all too often and it doesn’t seem all that healthy to me.