The little things that cost you dear when your brand isn't defined

I was in hospital having surgery yesterday.

Nothing major, but it required a general anaesthetic and therefore all the NHS liability-dodging that accompanies that. The experience turned out to be a lesson in the significant cost of the things that go wrong, in the absence of the focus only a brand can give you.

I have one pressing medical need, but the NHS decided to tackle the unconnected easy thing first, purely, I suppose to make me think they are doing, at least, something. This is what lack of focus looks like and how it results in poor prioritisation. Their objective is clearly to keep me off their backs, rather than my own!

The first real flaw in the process came when I engaged with the pre-surgery team. It’s their job to make sure I am fully prepared for the surgery and don’t have to be turned away when I get there. That’s a good thing, of course, because it should avoid wasting slots other patients could have. The trouble is the pre-surgery team don’t seem to talk to the surgical team so they aren’t really clear what's required.

I wasted days, getting my lazy and befuddled GP to prescribe me drugs to bring my blood pressure down because the pre-op team said the anaesthetist would consider me too high a risk. When I actually met with the anaesthetist team, they didn’t understand and told me my BP would have been fine. This not only wasted my time, but that of the pre-op team, my GP and the pharmacist. It also squandered money on unnecessary drugs.

The second nonsense was the Covid testing shambles. I understand Covid testing is important, but the process that’s in place is dysfunctional, it doesn’t come close to delivering it’s objective. In fact, it’s counter-productive and extremely wasteful of time and money.

My pre-op notes instructed me to register at a government website and take a test on each of the three days prior to my surgery. I registered and received a message that due to high demand it would take three days for me to receive my pack of seven tests. Aside from the fact that Covid isn’t having a surge at the moment, so the demand can’t be high and I only needed three tests, so the remaining four would be wasted, that wouldn’t have been soon enough, so I started searching for alternatives. However, the website told me only the results from test kits they provided could be registered.?

I called the support line where there was a message advising me they only operated weekdays from 9 to 5, but, out of hours, would respond to a text. I sent one. I’m still waiting five days later. The tests arrived the next day though, so clearly there's an internal communications problem.

The real revelation occurred when I came to register my results. You would think that the reporting process would involve photographing the test strips with their serial number and QR code and uploading the image, but, no! I simply had to tick a box that said I had taken a test and it was negative! What a total waste of time, money, the test kits, a website build and energy. I could have (and I'm sure others do just this) ticked the box. To be more ridiculous I then received a text message telling ME that my test was negative! This is where not having focus really shows a cost!

It's no news that the NHS is dysfunctional. I’ve highlighted numerous times the reason for this and explained the resolution . Governments talk continually about investment and remedies, but these are only sticking plaster. It is mind-bogglingly arrogant of those concerned to believe they don’t have to adhere to the same basic principles that every entity must to succeed at anything. Someone needs to define brand NHS and start building the brand community.?Only then will it be possible to get everyone into line and pursuing the same objective.

At the moment there’s a lot of box-ticking going on in the NHS with apparently little understanding of why the boxes are there. There's also unbridled incompetence, excruciating laziness and, if you believe Michael Ashcroft’s revelatory new book Life Support , rabid corruption. Until someone seriously gets hold of this NHS will continue to spiral into oblivion. Meanwhile, though, apart from all the financial costs, it’s increasingly costing lives, which is a price we shouldn't even be contemplating.