A Shrewsbury based business improvement consultant has accused
the public health sector of failing to train its staff adequately
to help them cope with changes brought about by the many
reorganisation programmes being put into force right across the
region.
Ellen Morley, Principal of The Business Company, is concerned
that whilst news of changes in the health sector features almost
daily in the region's media, staff on the coal face are often left
to work out for themselves ways of dealing with the new systems,
extra workload and immense upheaval that inevitably come with the
changes being forced upon them.
"These people cannot be expected to spend their working hours
fire-fighting and their leisure hours worrying about the backlog
that's building up," says Morley, "without being offered
opportunities to develop the personal skills that will help them
cope."
"In my experience as Principal of a successful business
improvement and training consultancy in Shropshire, there is a huge
appetite among health sector staff for personal development
training - particularly in the area of management and team leader
development. And this is because staff are being catapulted into
positions of greater responsibility, having to look after larger
teams, meet stretching and more demanding targets, become good
negotiators, deal with greater numbers of records and
responsibilities, become faster and clearer about the decisions
they make……. and ensure they deliver everything
that's required to be delivered to the letter of the code."
"But when it comes to training, those at the top are reluctant
to release them for half day training sessions. And this problem
does not just exist in hospitals - it exists in GP surgeries and
dental practices as well, despite there being readily available
funding for it."
"It is high time that those in the driving seats of the public
health sector realised the knock on effect of depriving these
people of the detailed training they need - de-motivation, rock
bottom morale and a massive surge of high quality human resources
towards the private sector."