It started off with an update on the
changes to the NHS management structure. Something about which I remain very
cynical. The NHS has major changes to its management structure with annoying
regularity. By the time any practical changes start filtering down so there is
another top-down change instigated and no change ever has any time to actually
take effect. No change is ever critically evaluated; every one is brought in at
the whim of whoever is in a position to order the change. What the NHS needs is
no change to allow the previous load of changes to take effect and be assessed.
There was then a paragraph about two
people who had been awarded an MBE for “services to healthcare science”.
This sort of thing *really*
annoys me. There are countless people up and down the country running scout
groups and Women’s Institute and soup kitchens and dog socialization groups (cough
cough!) who as unpaid volunteers do sterling things year-in year-out… and
here’s two being given an MBE for doing the job for which they are paid.
AI, innovation, use of NHS data… there
was actually quite a bit of stuff in this newsletter including a review of the
Sullivan review which has identified a serious safeguarding risk in the current
process of re-assigning gender and sex identity in medical records for children
and young people. The Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has
directed that the process for changing NHS numbers and gender markers for
children and young people under eighteens is stopped with immediate effect.
Leaving aside the politics of the matter
(which I wouldn’t want to touch with a barge pole!) this is the sort of
thing I need to know – a practical directive.
