This is my first post in the blogosphere proper - thank you for joining me
You may be aware that i have been publishing messages and sending them to members of the RCGP over the past two years - indeed i have also published them on the RCGP website - but now i plan to make them available online so that i can share ideas and concerns and receive your thoughts and comments
This is a short post to say hello and test the system! The College IT system is not up to blogging so i have opted to break free!
And why you may ask use the title The Point of Kairos well it comes from a book written by my good friend Roger Neighbour - the Inner Apprentice - Roger's Inner Consultation helped me to understand the consultation while his Inner Apprentice helped me on my road to becoming an educator - thank you Roger!
Kairos is the Greek word for the right time for action - well I believe that the time is right and we have reached in Roger's words the 'critical moment when something significant is poised to happen'.
The financial crisis has focussed the minds of politicians and those running the NHS. The departments of health in all four countries that make up the UK are going to be under severe financial pressure regardless of who wins the election. But, there are tremendous opportunities for GPs to influence what health care will look like in the future. The time has come for strong medical leadership across the UK - lets seize the moment and ensure that we continue to have a National Health Service that we can be proud of.
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Dear Steve,
ReplyDeleteI first met you at the spring conference in Blackpool,myself as a newly qualified GP.At that time you were discussing the the draft MRCGP curriculum.Eversince I have read your letters to members, listened to your speech at the 3 anual conferences. Everytime I came away with lot of reassurance and inspiration . You have been a good leader and worked tirelessly to lead RCGP and GPs in right direction. You have also grown in stature as a leader and General Practice as grown to new heights with you as our leader. You know this already but I felt I must write this to thank you for your good work and hard work.
Sahadev Swain,GP in Luton
Thank you for your upbeat and yet down-to-earth letters; there is too much moaning around about the NHS, maybe a kind of displacement activity because of other work or personal stresses. Having spent a good deal of the last 12 years working in countries of the former Soviet Union it is enlightening to compare the evolution of health systems that both started as command-control centrally-funded public systems, yet in the UK the NHS has managed the delicate balance of "patient power", "government power" and "doctor power" pretty well so far, for all are necessary. What the UK NHS has succeeded in (on the whole) is achieving a high degree of public accountability and fiscal transparency in our health system - in contrast this is still pretty foggy, if not openly corrupt, in much of eastern Europe. Our NHS is really quite excellent, but it does need constant efforts by ordinary people to counteract destabilisation such as the push for privatisation or excessive bureaucratisation of clinical activity. But, like Steve Field, I too am an optimist, and remember the passage on 'kairos' in Roger Neighbour's inspirational book.
ReplyDelete- Greta Ross, MRCGP and part-time international health projects consultant, 19-11-09