NHS: Hospital Bosses Forced to Chant ‘We Can Do This’

“We can do this!” is the kind of motivational fridge-magnet philosophy that is not needed by one of the best health services in the world and in the hospital you wouldn’t expect it. .

Yet in a meeting with NHS leaders, hospital bosses were forced to chant the phrase as if taking part in an awkward corporate team-building exercise when they were actually discussing A&E waiting times. That followed a stern ticking-off from Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt and NHS England’s chief executive Simon Stevens.

The executives said they felt “bullied, patronised and humiliated” after the meeting. Sixty of the trusts that have been performing worst on the target of keeping A&E waiting times under four hours were forced to attend and told to do better.

A spokesman for NHS Improvement, the body that oversees NHS Trusts and hospitals, made Hunt sound like a disappointed headmaster who had been forced to tell off some errant students.

“Performance at the organisations invited to today’s meeting is poor,” the spokesman explained. “We want to work with them and with their local health systems so that it improves in future.”

We Can Do This

The executives split up into smaller meetings of trusts from various regions. Paul Watson, NHS England’s regional director for the Midlands and east of England then demanded the chant.

“It was awful – the worst meeting I’ve been at in my entire career,” one attendee said when recounting the embarrassing experience to the Health Service Journal. “Watson said ‘Do you want the 40-slide version of our message or the four-word version?’ Everyone wanted the four-word version, obviously. He then said ‘I want you to all chant ‘we…can…do…this’.

It was awful, patronising and unhelpful, and came straight after the whole group had just been shouted at over A&E target performance and told that we were all failing and putting patient safety at risk.”  Watson may have hoped to inspire the troops by emulating Matthew McConnaughey’s famous chest-beating scene in the Wolf of Wall Street but the participants say it actually came across more like Bob the Builder’s theme tune: “Can we fix this? Yes we can.”

Take The Roof Off

Watson told the NHS bosses they were being too quiet, urging them to chant louder and “take the roof off.” After the publication of the story he responded to the Health Service Journal with regret.

“If anyone found my session on Monday inappropriate in any way then I can only apologise,” he said.

“It was meant as light relief rather than brainwashing. As I said at Monday’s event, this can be done. If that seems cheesy or patronising then so be it but it does have the merit of being true.”

NHS executives argued that there was little point calling such a meeting in the first place when there was no intention of offering the trusts any real support. The Department of Health still managed to issue a statement implying the whole situation was sorted out by Jeremy Hunt’s strong words.

“He met a number of NHS leaders to emphasise the importance of continuing to provide high standards of care throughout the winter period,” the department said.

A Cabinet Secretary telling health leaders how to do their jobs is one thing but he does not seem to have offered any response at the meeting to the many calls by medical bodies for urgent cash funding to prevent a potentially life-threatening flu crisis this winter.

by Stewart Vickers

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