Having an after work drink has become more difficult in recent weeks. The local theatre with attached bar has been suffering some severe restrictions due to its recent administration. The Theatre in Croydon has hosted many a famous act and served many a TCC employee. As a consequence of funding cuts they are now down to serving a small selection of bottled beers only. There are no crisps any longer and the spirits ran out over a week and a half ago. Yet out of habit I still turn up for an occasional drink.
How does this work with my local hospital though? If you put the local hospital, in my case the South London Healthcare NHS Trust, into administration, do they run out of equipment bit by bit? Do the administrators take a spreadsheet and cross out the non-essentials to flog at below market price? ‘Roll up, roll up x-ray machine going cheap’. Interestingly they suspend all accountable officers and replace with a special administrator, presumably he/she knows best?
It’s all very challenging and must be particularly unsettling for people who use and rely on their local hospital on a regular basis. You never forget the experience you have when your care is in someone else’s hands whether the birth of a child, a ‘routine’ procedure or even when a relative passes. Understanding people’s relationship to healthcare should be fully understood when communicating action such as administration, it is not just ‘appointments as usual’ it has to be more. Securing support for these very tough choices needs empathetic messages that resonate with concerns as well as pointing to a different future.
The barman tells me there is enough beer and not to worry, funny thing is though, I do.
Graeme Wilson is the Chief Executive Director at the The Campaign Company. If you want to see what your own primary values set is, why not take the simple Values Questionnaire here.
The Campaign Company works with councils to understand their communities and motivate people to change. They use this values approach to develop an understanding of how a target audience sees the world, as well as a variety of other innovative approaches, including social network analysis.