Webchat with Simon Stevens, Chief Executive of NHS England, Friday 8 September at 1pm

[BojanaMumsnet]

Hello

We’re pleased to announce a webchat with the CEO of NHS England, Simon Stevens, on Friday 8 September at 1pm.

NHS England leads the National Health Service in England, setting the priorities and direction of the NHS to improve health and care. Simon is accountable to Parliament for over £100 billion of annual health service funding. You may know him from his appearances in front of Commons select committees which have occasionally hit the headlines.

Simon joined the NHS in 1988 and became a frontline NHS manager, leading acute hospitals, mental health and community services, primary care and health commissioning across different parts of England. He also served seven years as the Prime Minister’s Health Adviser at 10 Downing Street, and as policy adviser to successive Health Secretaries at the Department of Health. He has been leading NHS England since 2014. Simon is married with two school-age children.

Please do join the chat on Friday at 1pm, or if you can’t make it, leave a question here in advance. Please do share the webchat on social - the more, the merrier!

As always, please remember our webchat guidelines - one question each, follow-ups if there’s time and please keep it civil.

Thanks
MNHQ

Why does NHS England allow such duplication of resources by having so many CCGs commissioning services for the same trusts. Each CCG will have an MD, finance director, chief nurse, lead clinician ... all on very high salaries. Surely (and this comes from someone who worked on a transformation programme and left the NHS because of the sheer wastefulness of the programme) they could be streamlined to save money and resources?

I don't understand why different NHS trusts have to individually develop their own guidelines. Shouldn't there be centralisation to streamline, have consistency and reduce wastage of very clever people's time all doing the same thing over and over? Eg, for infant feeding (something I'm interested in) many trusts have their own guideline on managing substantial weight loss postnatally. Some trusts seem to have no guideline. There doesn't seem to be a RCPCH or NICE one. It all seems a bit bonkers, since the evidence is the same everywhere (within a developed country like the uk).
Also, related, would the NHS develop something like a database of uncertainty. Each time a guideline works out that an important clinical question is unanswered, the question could go in the database for prioritising a research study to answer it. Could that happen? Or is it happening?

Would you ever consider turning the heat down on postnatal wards? It would be much more economical, better for the environment and every mother that no longer had to cope with the tropical temperatures would likely weep with gratitude.

What contingencies are you going to put in place if government policy ensures a mass exodus of EU staff due to Brexit? Some Italian/Spanish nurses ( of which there are many) have been told by their professional bodies that their work in the UK will no longer count towards their professional development due to Brexit. They've said they'll leave. The NHS will fall down.

I qualify as a nurse in 2019. Can you give me your best reason why I should work for the NHS? (Aside from moral/ethical/political obligations).

You're brave. Good luck 😂

I hope Simon takes the opportunity to read some of the current threads on here, particularly those highlighting the suffering being caused by lack of post op care for patients.
Every day, on every street in the land, someone is suffering as a result of poor NHS care, and yet we are pathetically grateful for any care and darent complain!

How is the stealth privatisation of the NHS going along on his watch? People didn't vote or pay taxes for our NHS to be outsourced to Virgin!
They can't even get broadband right, why should they be trusted with crucial health delivery?

Just registering my interest

Why in today's digital age does the NHS not have one integrated web system such that each patient can have one set of records and different hospitals can see this. At the moment, different hospitals and sometimes even different wards cannot access a patients medical records - this is vastly inefficient and puts patient safety at risk as they can't see all the info on a patient. Also it's very costly as each hospital will repeat a test that another one has done because they cannot access the details. This is within the same health trust.

I have a DP with a disability and have spent years attending hospital with him, dealing with the most serious issues (having to have limbs cut off) to the mundane. My view is that there are definitely "Cinderella' services, in particular in our experience orthotics (and to a slightly lesser degree) prosthetics. Trying to access decent orthotics from the NHS has been one of the most frustrating, soul destroying and tiring aspects of the disability. It's chronically underfunded and undervalued. We have been in situations where the health professional has been an overworked man nearing retirement age who was literally working out of a cupboard. We are manically saving up so we can pay privately because the brightest and best people in orthotics and prosthetics are all going straight into the private sector, where they can work with paralympians. Meanwhile the crisis in NHS orthotics continues.
My question is are you aware of how dire the situation is for people like us and secondly, is there a plan to improve things?

Furthermore I always thought it would be a good idea for children to be given information to help them if they have loved ones in hospital. My children have both spent a long time visiting hospitals and it is bewildering and scary. A booklet, preferably written for children by children would be a great idea. Mine, no doubt with lots of other Mumsnetters' children, would be happy to contribute their stories!

Is the British public's attachment to the NHS funding model - free at the point of delivery, no private insurance - a bit of a stumbling block to clear-eyed reform? Do you wish people were more rational about it?

Put another way: do you have a picture of Clement Attlee in your office, and if so is it on a dartboard

Will you be implementing any of the recommendations in the recent Nuffield Report, Learning from Scotland's NHS?

Hi,

Do you think the NHS will still be here in 50 years' time?

There is obviously a mental health crisis in England (and the rest of the UK) yet people are being denied help until they're "sick" enough or put on 6 month+ waiting lists. Why doesn't the NHS adopt an approach of early intervention? early intervention especially in stuff like eating disorders saves lives (and money in the long term)

I find some nurses very brusque and seemingly uncaring. (Others are great.)

What could the NHS do to ensure more nurses do care? Or at least seem to! 😂

What do you think is the biggest challenge for the NHS in the next five years?

Simon, NHS England is "minded to" leave the East Midlands without a congenital heart centre by ending the service at Glenfield Hospital in Leicester. Given the "outstandingly effective" rating from the CQC, the excellent clinical outcomes and the increasing case load, what real assurance can you give that the consultation outcome expected later this month will take account of the facts, and that the East Midlands won't be left as the only region without such a centre?

HI Simon

What do you think can be done to resolve serious NHS complaints and litigation more quickly?

It seems awful that cases for medical negligence are so drawn-out, costing everyone (including the taxpayer/NHS) money and stress. Patients aren't looking for blood or even to lay blame particularly, they just need compensation so that they can put things right and live their lives.

Is there something being done to shift attitudes away from a blame/fault culture and towards fast but accurate arbitration and compensation?

Which worries keep you awake at night?

The NHS is generally fantastic and my family and I have had excellent care in the main from all aspects of the NHS that we have accessed.

What can we do as individuals to ensure the NHS gets the funding it needs (happy to pay more tax for front line services) whilst helping to ensure the NHS is not systematically privatised for profit?

Why is there so little investment in public health and upstream policies such as health impact assessment in England?

Pathology services in an area of the east of England wasted several millions trying to set up a networked system which was eventually disbanded due to being unable to deliver a coherent and reliable networked service. At what point will those who control and allocate funds to the NHS acknowledge that funds are being wasted by constant reorganisation?

I am a GP who has left early - multiple reasons - ill health -unsafe job- unsustainable workload- financial risk of being tied to a lease- high indemnity costs- exposure to multiple risk - gmc / criminal/private prosecution - I could go on - there is a sustained growing exodus that will multiply as more stress is on the poor doctors who can't leave- it will break the dam soon -
Practices can no longer recruit because new doctors have a choice and they don't want to be trapped in a job that simply cannot be done with the resources provided.
On paper myself and many many others others who have had to walk away won't show up as absent until I relinquish my license later this year.
How can you save General Practice before it's too late or what plans to you have to replace the continuity , quality and commitment we have offered for so many years?

If you could start the NHS again (NHS 2.0) what would you do differently?