17 August 2008

Advice for Gordon 3

Gordon, there's one thing that causes loss of respect. It is doing something just to get yourself a good headline. Nobody is taken in. Journalists are idle types. Feed them a press release and they will just publish it. Critical appraisal is not in their lexicon. But the public are not taken in. If you send a bunch of deep cleaners into our hospitals just to get a headline you will be rumbled. A lot of people work for the health service from cleaners and porters to doctors and managers. The cleaners will not be taken in, nor the porters, nor the doctors and certainly not the managers. And they will tell their friends and families. So in the end nobody is taken in by silly initiatives. That's why you were rumbled. Deep cleaning was disruptive and expensive. It was not a solution to the problem. And that is why it was widely regarded as a sick joke. So, Gordon, no more of these silly ideas. Please. And don't forget your reflective practice. We don't want any more mistakes like that do we. And remember advice number 2: doing nothing is an option.

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