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Saturday 29 June 2013

Keogh Review

KEOGH REVIEW OR KEYHOLE REVIEW? TIME WILL TELL

The Keogh review team visited my work place. I volunteered to meet them. Twice. Once as a part of a group discussion. Again on what was supposed to be a one-to-one drop in session.

The group session was very interesting - individuals and as a group there was a delicate balance on many fronts. The one I found really intriguing was the pride we felt about our work place when faced with these external bodies which had to be balanced with the view that if we were really worthy of the pride we felt those external bodies would not be in our hospitals in the first place. Difficult emotions to cope with.

The group session was supposed to be for people who had signed-in before but eventually allowed people who had not registered. The advantage of a free discussion was probably cancelled out by poor management of 'air time'. There were some highly placed persons whose attendance might have dampened the sessions but I cannot be sure about that. The one-to-one drop in session turned out not to be one-to-one at all, I was invited in to sit as a previous person was talking to the Keogh people and a person who followed me was invited in to join as I was speaking. Of course we were asked if that was okay with us, what is the point of asking if it fundamentally changes the nature of the session. In my case the person before me and after me have a history of thinking on similar lines so I did not feel constrained and the person who followed me mentioned no feeling of constraint (in a private conversation later)

The Keogh people have promised that this will be a very open and transparent enquiry. So I am not going to put out what I said or did not say, as obviously without the bigger picture context in place I cannot make sense. In any case, if the promised transparency turns out to be true everything that we said (though anonymised, I think) would be available to everyone when the review is published.

I took the opportunity to ask them some questions. I wanted to know who exactly will write the report for my trust and whether that person or persons were actually present in the premises as a part of the visit. They were not sure about that.

I asked how the success of the Keogh review will be measured. They were unsure about that as well. 

There was an assurance that there will be all the support needed for the 14 trusts to deal with their problems. I am particularly keen that Keogh review should only be called a success if the 14 trusts under review were no longer outliers two years from now and remained so for a further four or five years. Having commissioned a review on high mortality, in my mind the obvious end point will be the reduction of mortality for which Keogh and DoH should take joint responsibility from now. To publish a report, however well informed it is, to provide support however intensive it is, will be meaningless unless our mortality gets low and remains low. Having lent his name, Sir Bruce should have no choice but to link his success to ours.

We discussed my motivation for meeting them. It was very simple - I live and work in the area, if I had a problem by default I will end up in my hospital's bed. If my hospital's mortality statistics are bad, it will be foolish of me to think I might escape from its clutches. So I want to see it get better.

We will have to wait and see if at the end of it all Keogh review will give us the keys we need to get out of this hole or will simply become a keyhole review. My healthcare, my life, my family's healthcare and my family's livers, my neighbours' healthcare and lives, my friends' healthcare and lives are at stake - so there is no other option than to get this right.

©M HEMADRI 
Follow me on twitter @HemadriTweets

Sunday 9 June 2013

Whose job is it in the NHS to reduce deaths and complications?


Recently there is an increasing concern about mortality and morbidity in the NHS. Let us for simplicity say that people are asking whether the death rates and complication rates can be reduced. People are asking if there are any avoidable components in relation to deaths and complications and whether those avoidable problems can be eliminated or at least reduced to minimum. People are also want to know who is responsible or accountable for ensuring lower death and complication rates.

NHS Directors

NHS trusts are in the business of delivering healthcare to their populations – that is the essential purpose of their existence. So it may be reasonable to assume that the directors, who are the top bosses of these trusts  and their bosses (SHA equivalent, NHS England directors) will be assessed and rewarded against clinical quality parameters of which deaths and complications are core.

Apparently not. The contract for the managers especially when it comes to pay uplifts and bonuses are very specific. I quote:


''It is an essential criterion of the performance bonus scheme that the organisation achieves its financial control target as agreed with its grand parent organisation (see paragraphs 64 and 65 below).



Where an organisation fails to do this, all its very senior managers will be treated as Category D performers and so no awards (either annual uplift or performance bonus payment) will be paid to them



The annual uplift will be applied to the basic pay being paid to the post holder (which would include any long-term RRP payment), provided that:



the organisation achieves its financial control target; and



the individual concerned is judged as performing at Category A, B or C.



Those in Categories A, B and C will receive this annual uplift to their basic pay, which will be pensionable



Those in Categories A and B will receive, in addition to the annual uplift, a non-consolidated bonus payment, provided the essential criterion is met

i.e. that the organisation achieves its financial control target. Bonus payments will be non-pensionable, non-consolidated one-off payments


So it is seems the only officially contracted criteria to be eligible for a pay uplift and bonus is meeting the financial target (and something woolly about being classed as A, B or C. In any case if you don't meet the financial target it is an automatic D which means no pay uplift or bonus irrespective of how much quality is improved and mortality/morbidity is low

What do you think might be happening in a manager's mind when priority setting? Which director will be prepared to have a very low mortality and morbidity and yet be classed as a failure and given a D. If ever a CEO was prepared to do that what do you think that their directors's mind would think given the fact that various director's pay are set as a percentage of their CEO's pay. What does it tell Jo public when the Finance Director's pay is linked to and set at 75% of the CEO pay and all other directors get a lesser percentage? One lovely chain where there is clear financial incentive to reach financial targets and ensure the CEO gets a higher pay. I am sure my understanding is not perfect but it looks like a conflict of interest built into a contract - you could not make it up if you were writing fiction. Where do you think the emphasis will lie? No guess work – it is explicit – financial control target it is and nothing else.

Now do I think for a minute that any CEO or director gets to work and says 'kill patients but save money', heck no. But we have all heard about subliminals, motivation, contractual obligations playing a part in how we perform. It does not sound sweet.

REGULATORS

We then have regulators to oversee that trust bosses who are contractually only obliged to serve the financial agenda are still meeting some sort of standards that matter to a publicly funded healthcare system – i.e. clinical quality with death and complications at its core.

Lets look at some of the regulators purposes:

Monitor: Our main duty is to protect and promote the interests of patients. We do this by promoting the provision of health care services which is effective, efficient and economic, and maintains or improves the quality of services.
CQC: We make sure hospitals, care homes, dental and GP surgeries, and all other care services in England provide people with safe, effective, compassionate and high-quality care, and we encourage them to make improvements.
GMC: Our purpose is to protect, promote and maintain the health and safety of the public by ensuring proper standards in the practice of medicine.

But let us look at how it actually works out

CQC

The CQC talks about safety and quality but when you look into what they actually say there is no specific mention that organisations will be assessed against their death and/or complication rates
For God's sake how else do you assess care quality if you do not start with death and complications.


MONITOR

It is the government's aim to provide independence to NHS trusts by allowing them foundation trust status. Clinical quality especially reducing mortality and morbidity is not a criteria for affording independence (though there is assessment on whether the trust is governed properly)
With 10 out the 14 trusts under Keogh review being Foundation trusts, it is reasonable to wonder what actually the question 'well governed' means for Monitor.

BOSS' BOSS – The Grandparent Organisation is DoH

It looks like the department of health may have the overall responsibility for mortality and morbidity reduction though those are not explicitly spelt out in their website

It has taken nearly a decade and half after HSMR was introduced that DoH is making some moves to look into this. Perhaps better late than never. But as the grandparent organisation DoH is responsible for setting the contractual framework like it is in the first place.

What about doctors and nurses?

Doctors 

Doctors bonuses in the form of CEAs are based on quality of service and hopefully given to excellence. There is no requirement to demonstrate reduction of mortality or morbidity but the hope is that those two essential measures of quality will be considered explicitly when these awards are made. That is sometimes the case, sometimes that is not the case. In theory it is possible for even the highest award holders to hold the awards without ever demonstrating a decrease in mortality or morbidity.
Then of course there is the GMC who will come down on doctors who are caught out mainly due to significant single incidents which are reported. More recently the GMC due to its revalidation format demands 'quality improvement' though does not explicitly demand reduction of deaths and complications. 

Nurses

Agenda for change does not speak explicitly about improving clinical quality or reducing mortality/morbidity.


So who is responsible for deaths and complications in the NHS?

It is everyone's job but no one is required to do it and nobody is responsible or accountable for it.

It does not say in anyone's job description or contractual terms that 'it is your contractual duty to seek and achieve a reduction in mortality and morbidity of your patients and when it is not achieved to provide a reasonable explanation of why they have not been achieved and what you will do to achieve them'. Nobody's pay scale is linked to a reduction of mortality and morbidity. Therefore no one is responsible or accountable for deaths and complications. People do it as an optional extra, as a gesture of goodwill, from the goodness of their hearts, as a side effect of their day jobs. There are so many organisations all claiming to be working for patients' protection, quality and so on but all they do is announce diktats on what others should do; they do not hold themselves accountable on behalf of or as representatives of their members by measured reductions in avoidable deaths or complications. It is always everybody's job, somebody else's job, each one of us wants to hold somebody else to account but never us.

That is why it is so very impossible to deal with and so very difficult to get meaningful sustainable improvements. The contractual requirements, recognition and reward structures are all wrong in the sense they are not geared to look for quality improvement. Looks like this is a case where the structure and process results in just the expected poor outcome.

There are solutions – it is to use healthcare management methods to manage healthcare and not to use as we do now - business, financial, manufacturing, service industry or other management methods for healthcare. Whether there is enough interest, knowledge or expertise to do so is highly questionable.


©M HEMADRI 
Follow me on twitter @HemadriTweets

Further Info: I am informed by an NHS FT Board Director that the NHS Board director's contract that is referred to in this blog does not apply to NHS FT Chief Exec or Board Directors.
It will be interesting to find out who it applies to.
Hemadri
15 August 2013