Lucy Letby, the NHS and the rise of managerialism | Letters
Pete Dorey believes most public services are thoroughly over-managed, Michael Barrett says whistleblowing policies are essential.
Plus letters from Frances Kirkham and Jenny Webb Tom Dolphin’s excellent article on the failings of NHS management made sombre reading ( The Letby inquiry report makes one thing crystal clear: too much NHS management is scandalously poor, 16 September ).
Yet I believe that most of our public services are thoroughly over-managed, with frontline professionals neither listened to nor respected by their institutional superiors, and at risk of damaging their careers if they speak out about poor decisions, excessive workloads and impossible targets or “performance indicators”.
Like so many of our current woes, the rise of managerialism can be traced back to the public service reforms of the Thatcher governments in the 1980s, and the mantra of “management’s right to manage”.
As professionals were supposedly self-serving vested interests, the transfer of power to managers was supposed to increase efficiency and responsiveness to service users.
Continue reading...
5News aggregated this summary from the outlet’s public feed. The full article, with all the context, is on www.theguardian.com — the content belongs to The Guardian Society Health.
