Politics

British politics is hitting rock bottom at the moment. Two things stick out at the moment

Criminals not on a database The HNS

We have had yet another Civil Service type scandal as 27,000 criminal records were allowed to sit in various offices and not be entered into the Police database. The upshot being that hundreds of serious criminals were walking the streets and in spite of criminal records checks, could have gone back into the situations where they were putting the public at risk. It really is incompetence of the highest level. The Opposition's response to all of this? Did anyone tell lies about what they knew and when they know it: not, note how to solve the problem and so on.

Sir Gerry Robinson is a wandering business man who was given the job at Rotherham Hospital of reducing waiting times for patients. This was a fascinating programme that showed things in a warts and all perspective. A fascinating insight into decision making in a large organisation. One thing that struck me was that there is a culture of people saying, 'this could only happen in the NHS'; and 'in the NHS ... '. Such sentiments are nonsense and Robinson did demonstrate that solutions to all problems are possible. What is important, he found, is that people talk to each other, leaders lead, managers manage and anyone can have a good idea to solve problems.

Why is the NHS programme a political issue? Well, we now know some of the problems and their solution and yet these lessons will not be generally learned and politicians will be the last to learn them.

Finally, the NHS initiative came from the Open University and you can read more on their web site at www.open2.net

End of mini rant.

DW