Over regulation costs us all millions

“Inspection is fine but when it becomes onerous and just for inspection’s sake… it cost us all millions!!” 

Fifty days into my new Cabinet role, after Conservatives won Staffordshire in the election on 4th June, and things are much clearer and I feel more in the driving seat now. 

I’m responsible for the social care and protection of adults who are vulnerable as well as a much broader remit for ‘wellbeing’ which is basically the general longterm health of Staffordshire’s population. The latter by working with the NHS and others.

Overbearing inspection costs millions

My annual budget is about 300million directly as well as a considerable amount of extra pooled money with the NHS and I inherited a massive multi million pound overspend from my Labour predecessor.

It’s been an extraordinary experience over the past few weeks. My brain genuinely hurts from trying to take in the complex nature and enormous diversity which makes up the ‘health environment’ of our large county. The inherited budgetary headache and an ageing population, meaning even greater financial pressures for the future, are all adding to the plethora of information I have stored in my head.

But despite all that and a working week which has averaged 60 hours since I started I wouldn’t change it for anything. It is something that matters; something which is not only a massive challenge personally but also a real privilege because success or failure will have a big, real and identifiable impact on actual people. 

The fundamental changes to the way we do things in Social Care and Health that I’ve briefly mentioned before are ongoing, albeit in the background planning stage at present. They are pretty radical and will make social care much more accessible and easier for people to engage with in times of crisis and stress. I am confident that things will be very different in two years time, and considerably sooner in some aspects. My basic premace is to try and get things right for the longer term and to get away from the constant patching, fire fighting and making do which has gone on for so long… or so it appears. 

And it’s clear that the 1200 or so people I’ve met so far who are involved in all aspects of  what we do, both within the Department and outside in the health and care community, are eager to do things better. I haven’t found the ‘brick walls’ to big change I expected and I haven’t found anything yet which I’m completely beaten by.

That brings me finally, for the moment, to one area that is trying my patience and is reflected in the title of this post.

This Government loves inspection. And that’s fine, until it starts to get in the way of making things better at the front end of public services. The inspection industry and everything that has grown up around it is massive. It exists, in many ways, to exist. And that costs the tax payer billions nationally and many many tens of millions in Staffordshire.

And, as we all know, it doesn’t always work. Stafford Hospital, Baby Peter and many other tragedies have happened whilst the inspection regime gives top marks to those in the spotlight.

In Staffordshire my biggest, by far my biggest, concern is how slaving to the bureaucracy of overburdening inspection takes so much of people’s time from what professionals should be doing on the front line for real people.

Too often I find passionate and dedicated health and care professionals demoralised because they are sitting, number crunching and data collecting, in front of PC screens instead of looking after the people who really matter out there.

And all too often I find that what they are doing serves little purpose other than pandering to the inspection feeding frenzy. It’s a vicious circle… the more you have to prove what you are doing on the front line, the more it takes resources from that front line. 

The only data collection and ‘performance management’ I want is around directly contributing to safe, financially efficient and effective outcomes for people. I want proffesionals to know why they are collecting ‘this data’ and doing ‘that reporting’ and if it brings nothing towards genuinely improving outcomes for people ‘out there’ I don’t want them doing it.

Oh, if it were quite that easy… it’s not. And I say once again, the right inspection is invaluable for improving self awareness for an organisation and ensuring better service delivery for those who need it. 

But it has to be right, not overbearing and for the sake of it. I want the professionals to get on with what they were trained to do and that means collecting only what we need to. That’s my biggest challenge to ensuring more money is spent on people and services rather than on bureaucrats.

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