Whatever your political persuasions or beliefs, you can’t help but feel a bit sorry for the NHS at the moment. If it’s not someone criticising the very essence and ‘raison d’etre’ of the NHS, particularly in relation to President Obama’s proposed health reforms in the US, it’s headlines about the salaries of medical staff or confusion over the swine flu advice. One way or another, it’s seldom positive.
A particular headline which caught my eye recently cried out that NHS staff are ‘Fat, unfit and top of the sick league’. This was in particular reference to the recent interim report outlining the large scale review that Dr Steve Boorman and his team have carried out looking at the health and well-being of NHS staff. (And by the way, the headline is misleading, but more on that later!) As with any review or audit of staff health and well-being, there are likely to be some results which will not make particularly ‘pretty’ reading and that require attention and investment. However, this inevitable fact doesn’t constitute a good reason not to carry out such reviews. The research base and business case for improving employee engagement and well-being is well-documented and, in my view, impossible to ignore – a healthy, engaged and resilient workforce translates into higher productivity and therefore better results.
The very fact that the Government has commissioned such a report speaks volumes for the commitment and importance placed on the NHS and the influence that their staff can have on the overall health and well-being of the nation – and, in particular, that of patients. Aside from the obvious medical treatment that the NHS provides, there is another role it plays which is to set and promote a good example for the rest of social and corporate Britain to follow.
Now that the review has been carried out and the government’s initial investment made, we shouldn’t be focusing on the few attention grabbing headlines that describe a horror story. Dr Boorman and his team have set out a series of key recommendations in their interim report and the final report will be delivered by the end of the year – we now need to give the individual Health Authorities and their Trusts a chance to consider and implement that advice. Perhaps you could say that the Boorman team have had the easy job, because the next step will be for the NHS to make the change happen in a planned and meaningful way.
There may be some gory headlines here, but based on the experiences of my university spin-off company, Robertson Cooper, I know that there is some serious commitment out there in the NHS – both in effort and financial terms – to improving employee engagement and well-being. From my perspective the change has already started – so watch this space, because I’ll be following this one very closely!
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6801240.ece
Posted by Cary Cooper 
