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Ambulance service defends £10,000 ‘cool’ survey
Tuesday 4th May 2010, 10:27AM BST.
West Midlands Ambulance Service today defended spending £10,000 on a project to find out what makes a leader “cool”, after it was condemned on a union website.
Staff have been asked in a questionnaire to say who in their opinion is, or was, a “cool” leader.
A list of names to score includes Richard Branson, Gordon Brown, Hitler, Winston Churchill, Martin Johnson and Fabio Capello.
Service chiefs claim the study will help the organisation, which covers Shropshire, and the wider NHS to be more efficient and effective. But the project has been condemned on a union website and the trust has been asked to apologise for the survey at a time of funding cuts.
Two members of the service won the £10,000 bursary from the West Midlands strategic health authority to carry out the project.
A questionnaire in the staff newsletter asks people how they wish to be led and what traits are important in perceiving a leader to be cool.
But on a Unison union website a member asks why when £10,000 is being spent on the survey, frontline staff are being asked to shop around for cheaper fuel, go out in vehicles with 180,000 miles on the clock, and wear cheap uniforms.
“I think the least we deserve is an apology for the insult to our intelligence,” says the writer. The project was also attacked by former member of staff, Steve Jetley, who helped lead a campaign to try to safeguard the Shropshire emergency control centre in Shrewsbury.
A statement from the trust says: “The project is important in identifying the key characteristics of good leadership, to allow the organisation and the wider NHS to be more efficient and effective which, in turn, will have a direct and positive impact on improving patient care.”
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Here’s a question. What makes an Equality and Diversity Manager ‘redundant’?
Not long before these pointless and unneccessary layers of local government are weeded out. I can’t blame the questinnaire setter but I CAN blame the money waster who commissioned them.
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I am truly appalled at wastage of this kind. In these times of NHS cuts and huge deficits, to be spending £10,000 on finding out ‘what makes a leader cool’ is insulting and offensive. Everyone I have spoked to so far agrees that there are hundreds of things that £10k could have been spent on that would have benefited patients more.
I have therefore put up a web-site (www.dejetleymarks.com/NHS) where you can vote on whether you think this was a good use of tax-payers money. Voting only takes a second or two, and is anonymous, but the results will be passed on to the CEO of West Midlands NHS, the CEO of West Midlands Ambulance Service and the new Health Minister (whoever that turns out to be after Thursday)
Please take the time to vote and show that wasting much needed NHS money on this kind of nonsense is no longer acceptable.
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Utter waste of money.
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The mind boggles. Unbelievable.
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Council tax keeps going up and service goes down but what happens to the surplus money that’s not being spent of essential services?….here’s your answer folks.
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this is why we must start sacking public sector workers ASAP
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Safe to say whichever ‘leader’ commissioned this survey is ‘way uncool dude!’
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Yes i totally agree that this was a complete waste of money but I would just like to reply to Sarah Blaine’s comment about ‘sacking public sector workers’. I do hope she is reffering to the useless managers and NOT the hard working and committed general staff.
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Yes, this is an utter waste of money but it is minor in comparison to what else WMAS has done to the Shropshire area. Throughout the county there are out stations which are supposedly manned 24hrs a day, 7 days a week. This is simply not the case as ambulances from these stations such as Craven Arms, Oswestry, Bridgnorth, Whitchurch and Market Drayton are regularly sent to cover Telford and Shrewsbury leaving the people of rural Shropshire devoid of ambulance cover. This is purely and simply down to WMAS management believing that the rural areas are not as important as Birmingham, Coventry, Dudley and the Black Country areas and not having sufficient manning in the larger towns in Shropshire. One officer was recently heard to comment that there arent many Cat A life threatening calls out in the country anyway! Training is also prioritised to the West Midlands areas also, leaving some Emergency Care Assistant staff waiting 12 to 18 months longer than their counterparts in the ‘more important’ areas to get the chance to train to Ambulance Technician level. Simply put, dont need an ambulance in rural Shropshire unless you can wait half an hour or more and dont be surprised if only one member of the crew that attends you is qualified and the other just a driver. Well, I suppose you could always move to Dudley! Cool leadership indeed!
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First of all, I shudder when I see comments like that made by ‘Sarah Blaine’, who sees a waste of money like this one and makes a ridiculous “start sacking all public sector workers” statement as a kneejerk (and very simplistic) reaction.
The initial fault here is not so much by the Ambulance Trust but by the Regional Health Authority, who apparently have £10,000 to waste on projects like these. Well, not for much longer they haven’t, no matter WHICH party comes to power. Whoever agreed to spend this money on such a frivolous project should be fired forthwith.
Next in line for some serious criticism IS the Ambulance Service – which since taking over the Ambulance Service in Shropshire has actually worsened response times in the county (one suspects they’d be even worse but for the sterling work of the Community First Responders, who not only provide vital first aid but whose attendance also allows the Ambulnace Trust to bolster their response times, especially for Category A incidents.) Anyone with an ounce of common sense in the Trust should have known this idea would go pear shaped, but unfortunatley like in most Ambulance Trusts common sense is in short supply amongst the ever increasing number of managers. No point in expecting the Ambulance Trust to do anything but defend this project – they have an expensive and probably overstaffed PR department who’s job is to defend things such as this. And in paying for projects and departments like these, the Service fails to invest in resources on the ground (ie road staff), especially in rural areas where call volumes aren’t as large.
Its all about statistics.
Dynamic deployment of ambulances in much the same in all Ambulance Services and frequently the rural areas lose out, with resources diverted to the busier areas (they’re the ones where ‘targets’ need to be met above all because its where the 999 calls are!). Moving ambulances from one place to another within Shropshire – while not ideal – at least is better than diverting county resources into the greater West Midlands area. And I bet that happens too.
To be fair it also works the other way – eg during the Bridgnorth incident a couple of weeks ago, when I would assume that some of the ambulances came in from outside Shropshire. But lets be honest, most of the time I’m sure its Shropshire that loses out.
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