Mrs Grumppa was recently admitted to a NHS hospital where she has nothing but praise for the medical staff. However, she was placed opposite the shower room and it soon became clear that the shower was not working properly; every time it was used it flooded.
She suggested that an Out of Order notice might be a good idea, and this was done. She then learned that the shower had not been usable for a fortnight, and the nurses had reported the problem but nothing had been done.
When she told me about it I went home, found out who were the executive directors of the trust, telephoned the main switchboard, and asked for the Chief Operating Officer by name (a very distinctive one). This produced no response, so I asked for the title and was bounced back to the switchboard twice. So I asked for the Communications Director, and his phone was picked up by the COO's PA, who confirmed that neither her boss's phone nor her own had rung.
I explained the problem, and within a couple of hours three men turned up with a plunger and departed after four minutes, taking down the Out of Order notice. The shower now works.
In the good old days the ward sister or matron would have taken a maintenance man by the ear and had the problem resolved In ten minutes. Now it took someone who knew how to work the system (and the system is the same everywhere) to get something done.
My questions are simple. What do NHS managers actually do? And why does it take three people to unblock a drain?
Are you in your forever house?
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