Well actually I have been to somewhere on the outskirts of the city, so cannot report seeing any historic buildings, the river Cam or students on bikes. I have been helping to create the NHS Directors of the future.

For the second time this year, I have been a development consultant (note the grand title) on a Leadership / management course for NHS managers who are stupid enough to think they want to run our organisations. This involved spending two long days in a hotel, spend a night in a single bed (why do uk hotels do twin rooms with 2 such narrow beds? Who actually likes these) and observed the behaviour, written up and given feedback to 3 candidates. Whenever I do this kind of thing I wonder if A) I might actually be good enough to aspire for directorship and B) would I ever want to do it?

The great thing about preparation for senior management in the NHS in 2008 is that it no longer seems to be left to chance. There is this 2 day simulation / feedback exercise, coaching, 360 feedback, action learning and study days which of course are called master classes. Observations are carried out by people like me (trained in such stuff) and actual proper directors and the rest is properly planned, resourced and run. There is some hope maybe then that in the future our Trusts have some chance of being run in a half decent manner by people who have had actual on the job training and support as well as completing the obligatory MBA!

The thing for me though is that actually while I love working on this kind of course (while mainly doing my day job) I actually don’t desire to be one of these people. I am not driven for power or even for money (though I could always do with more), I actually don’t want the stress or to work the kind of hours these people often already work. But could I do it? Well, for me thats the actual thing, these people are normal human beings, and no doubt if I or perhaps you wanted to you could, but do you want to?