IHSCM weekly news, editorials and events
This week’s editorial comes to you from Sue Jones, Director of Social Care, as Jon will be celebrating the marriage of his son with his family. We wish them all many congratulations!
I am sure most of us have noticed the hills and fields around us have looked strangely unfamiliar in the last month or so. The grass that would normally create a carpet of green (particularly here in Wales) had turned brown, dry and brittle. I have even been able to feel the crunch of the grass under my feet. What was once full of life appears at first glance, to have almost disappeared.
And yet, over the week, the rain has finally arrived and the landscape has changed!
Almost miraculously, the brown grass has started to change. Tiny shoots of green are appearing. Life that seemed to have vanished was never really gone, it was simply waiting for the conditions to change.
This got me thinking about health and social care, and, more importantly, about people.
We often talk about resilience as though it is the ability to keep going regardless of what life throws at us. And we, as humans, are remarkably resilient. Certainly, for you, the people who work in health and social care, regularly navigate uncertainty, loss, pressure, change and difficult circumstances.
You adapt. You carry on. You find ways through.
But resilience should never be confused with not needing nourishment.
Even the toughest, most resilient of grasses need rain.
So do you..
Nourishment in health and social care can take many forms. It might be receiving great care when we are need it. It might be a kind word from someone who notices that we are struggling. It might be having someone listen (really listen) when we need to be heard.
For those working in health and social care, nourishment might mean having a leader who creates a sense of safety. Someone who trusts us, values our contribution and understands that people cannot continually give without also having the opportunity to replenish.
Sometimes nourishment is surprisingly small.
A thank you.
A cup of tea.
A smile.
Someone asking, “How are you?” and genuinely wanting to know the answer.
A colleague checking in after a difficult day.
A leader saying, “I’ve got this, you don’t have to carry it alone.”
None of these things require huge budgets or complex strategies. Yet they can make an extraordinary difference to how people feel.
Perhaps we sometimes overcomplicate what it means to create great health and social care. We talk about transformation, integration, productivity, efficiency and innovation; all important, of course. But underneath all of this are human beings who need to feel cared for, valued, connected and safe.
The rain did not need to convince the grass and the flowers to grow. It simply provided what was needed for growth to happen.
Maybe that is our role too.
To create the conditions in which people feel nourished.
Because beneath the exhaustion, the pressure and sometimes the apparent lack of life, there may still be those tiny shoots of possibility. People who are waiting for the right conditions to grow again.
To showcase this point, the above picture is a Wishes and Dream Dahlia in our garden. Normally, at this time of year, our garden has an abundance of these cheery flowers but this year the leaves had shrivelled up and the flowers that had appeared were very small…until the rain came! Just a week of the nourishment they needed and they have been brought back to life. So please can I ask that you do something today that replenishes you, no matter how small, because you all really do matter.
Sue Jones
Director of Social Care
In one of the most controversial clinical decisions of recent times, the UK National Screening Committee has ruled against the mass screening of men for prostate cancer.
In their latest podcast Niall and Roy question the committee’s Chair, Sir Mike Richards, and seek to understand a decision which has been challenged by former Prime Ministers, high profile patients with prostate cancer such as Sir Chris Hoy, as well as other celebrities. The committee even rejected the idea of screening black men who have double the risk of developing prostate cancer, men with a general family history, and even some with certain genetic factors.
Sir Mike is a former consultant oncologist who became the national cancer tsar and brought about major improvements in the diagnosis and treatment of the disease across the UK. But when it comes to prostate cancer, while he supports the idea that men who want to have a PSA test should be allowed to have one, he argues that, based on current evidence, a screening programme would do more harm than good.
This is a complex area which is developing all the time and he concedes that as our understanding grows and as treatment and testing develop, the case for screening may be made. He is also adamant that this is not one of those clinical decisions based on cost.
If you are with or without a view on this topic, do join Niall, Roy and Mike In the Loop, and like men all over the country, make up your own mind as they explore this delicate and difficult topic.
It’s a great listen – find it now wherever you find your podcasts.