The up-sum of the report? "... inspectors said there was a shortage of staff (nurses) and pressure on hospital beds..." Well, that was �300k well spent. We might never have known...

The once world-renowned cancer specialist now chief clip-board carrier, Mike Richards said "Some of the issues being faced by the Trust now, such as pressures on bed capacity, were those experienced in the wider NHS a few years ago."

You will probably want to read that again. If Richards has been reported correctly, he is saying the wider NHS no longer faces pressures on bed capacity. What planet is he on?

Sir Michael Adrian Richards, is or was; an oncologist, DH National Cancer Director. Attended Dragon School in Oxford, Radley College. Was an Imperial Cancer Research Fund research fellow in medical oncology at Bart's, oncology consultant at Guy's, Sainsbury Professor of Palliative Medicine at St Thom's, head of the Academic Division of Oncology at King's, chair of the National Cancer Research Institute, Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians, Fellow of the Royal College of Radiologists, Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health, a trustee of the Science Museum in London and Marie Curie Cancer Care.

You will note he has never been to business school, has no management qualifications and never run a hospital. In my view that little inconvenience makes it difficult to take him seriously.

The population of the Isle of Wight is 140,500. There are 69,000 domestic households of which 1 in 6 are occupied by someone over 65yrs. The +90 group has expanded by 23%. The dependency ratio, the ratio of working age persons compared to those aged 65+, will drop from 2.3 in 2011, to only 1.8 by 2021.  

Young people who might be, or become nurses are melting away to the mainland and recruitment difficulties can only end in downsizing the Trust and sending more patients to mainland Trusts who are also having trouble recruiting.  

In the wider UK the number of all types of nurses per 1,000 head of population has gone from 2010 - 10.1, 2011 - 9.5 and 2012 - 8.8.

Does Richards offer any analysis? No. He is not a manager, doesn't think like a manager, can't solve problems like a manager. He can only spend �300k, tell us the bleedin' obvious, run some place else and spend another �300k...  like the men on the Escher staircase he keeps doing the same thing.  

On the back of a fag packet; for the Isle of Wight just to be on a par with the rest of the UK needs (140k pop/8.8 nurse average) = approximately 16,000 nurses. Adjust for deprivation, Jarman Scores, age and all the rest probably doesn't enter Richard's head. How many registered nurses are there on the IoW? Richards doesn't tell us. How to get more? That's a question too far for Richards.

Richards pulled the same stunt at Northwick Park in London; "... A&E had inadequate staffing levels to protect patients from avoidable harm." What is the point of turning up at hospital after hospital saying they need more staff? WE KNOW!

An HR director wrote in confidence; they'd recruited 90-ish (the exact number might identify them) nurses from overseas at a cost of �500k before any of them had touched a patient. Pressure from the Flat-Earthers had forced their hand. The full year cost of additional nurses was unbudgeted; as a consequence, they forecast a deficit. Now they are battling with the regulator who is threatening sackings and demanding budget cuts so they end the year in balance.

I'm sure Richards is good to his mum, buys a copy of the Big Issue and is well intended but he's as useful as a knitted condom. Lording the landscape of healthcare shouting 'more nurses', ignoring the NHS is a whole system with structural dysfunctionality and unsustainable funding... diminishes him.

Inspection is not a management technique, it is a political tool. Richards doesn't see that. Meanwhile as his reputation and good name is ruthlessly exploited by politicians his credibility evaporates.

Richards blames hospitals for what are really political failings and has, like the politicians, become part of the problem.

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roy.lilley@nhsmanagers.net 

Know something I don't - email me in confidence.

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