The language used by managers in the National Health Service (NHS) is often ‘gobbledegook’, according to a new report by the Plain English Campaign.
Steve
Jenner, the Campaign's spokesman, said the NHS has become riddled with jargon when
it comes to explaining many issues, such as the closure of hospital services or
major incidents.
But what is even
more worrying is that he believes the NHS may be doing this on purpose.
"If you
use impenetrable language it means the public has no clue what is going on. This suits the NHS sometimes." He said. “What this
jargon is describing is very important. It should be articulated very clearly. We
expect doctors to clearly explain themselves. It should be the same for NHS
management."
What the heck is a ‘Sticky
Toffee Pudding’?
‘Sticky
toffee puddings’ (STPs) is a new management phrase being used in the NHS. In
fact, these 'puddings' are among the most important developments in the health
service in recent years.
But you
would never guess what the phrase actually means. (Incidentally, it means ‘Sustainability
and Transformation Plans’).
However, the
jargon goes further than that, according to the Plain English Campaign. Look
through most plans (there are 44 of them altogether) and you will find some
strange phrases.
Cambridgeshire
and Peterborough's documents, for example, talk about investing in
"system-wide quality improvements" and developing a "shared
understanding of all the interrelated issues", while being able to learn
"what it means to us as individuals and as organisations".
Meanwhile,
documents from North Central London NHS shared the experience of one patient's
care that went wrong. It says that due to "hand-offs, inefficiencies and sub-optimal advice and information transfers" the "patient's
pathway" went on for too long!!
Another
popular "pathway" is the ambulatory patient pathway. What does that
mean? It simply means that the patient can go home after being seen in
hospital. Why can't they just say that then?!?!
‘Vanguards’
is another phrase often used to confuse the public. There are 50 'vanguards' that have
been set up to test new ways of running services. They were created in 2015 and
include schemes to get hospital doctors working in community clinics and to
provide advice via video link-ups as well as the creation of super hubs in the
community bringing together GPs, district nurses and council care teams.
You should
not be surprised to hear evidence of what works best in the ‘vanguard’
programmes will then be fed into the ‘STP’ process. Aaaaggghhhhhh!!!!
And how
about this for extreme gobbledegook? Northern Ireland's ten-year health
strategy, published last autumn, promised to shift the focus from
"treatment of periods of acute illness and reactive crisis approaches,
towards a model underpinned by a more holistic approach to health and social
care.” EH?!?!?
Why can’t
they simply say “to get people to live more healthily and give them better
support to stop them needing hospital care.” It makes far more sense to say
this, and is easily understood by the public. So why do they insist on using
such confusing terminology?
And has
anyone heard of ‘Operational Pressures Escalation Level Four’?!?!?
That is the
new name for a ‘black alert’ (when hospitals get so busy they have to cancel
non-emergency operations, divert ambulances and call in extra staff).
And can you guess
what ‘red alerts’ (the level below 'black alerts’ are now called? Yes, that's
right, ‘Operational Pressures Escalation Level Three’.
Guidance
issued by NHS England last year actually ordered hospitals to use this dreadful
new terminology when communicating with the public. But thankfully not everyone
obeyed this stupid new rule. Newspaper coverage this winter was littered with reports
of ‘black alerts’ and ‘red alerts’ - terms that at least the public can
understand.
Why is the National Health Service Littered with Gobbledegook?
The answer
is obvious really. The NHS want to confuse their own customers (i.e. their patients) so
that they don’t understand what is meant whenever any bad news is being conveyed.
More importantly, they want to keep a sense of power over us ‘little’
people. We are the mere users of their services. And what better way to keep
power over service users than by using terminology that ordinary people don’t understand?
We see this
technique frequently used throughout the public sector. For example many local
councils and parts of the Civil Service are littered with management-speak, gobbledegook, jargon, acronyms and buzzwords that none of the customers actually understand.
The interesting thing is that in the private health sector, nearly all communications materials are extremely well-written so that the customers can easily understand what they are being told. I have been treated several times recently in private hospitals, and the communications has always been outstanding.
In fact, my experiences of private healthcare in the last year has shown what a massive gap there is between the NHS and the private sector in terms of customer service generally. And this is not just down to the private health sector having more money, as I will explain in a future article.
It's high-time that management in the NHS started treating (excuse the pun) their customers with a bit more respect and dignity. After all, WE are the people that pay their wages.
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