New neighbourhood pilots are flying blind

Copperfield on the new neighbourhood pilots that pledge to make GPs the ‘cornerstone’ of the NHS

So now we know which GP ‘places’ will boldly go where no GPs have gone before. Apart, that is, from those GPs like me who thought we had, in fact, boldly been there already – given that the novel neighbourhood pilot schemes describe exactly the service we’ve been trying to provide for the last few years.

But there is some clarity in the pilot plan, at least. We GPs have been promoted, or demoted, or shifted sideways, from being the ‘bedrock’ of the NHS to being its ‘cornerstone’. It’s nice to know that, in the great architectural structure of the NHS, we’re still propping the whole thing up, despite feeling like its cesspit.

And we also know what material support the neighbourhood pilots will be offered, and I think it’s worth reporting these verbatim:

• Opportunity to ‘help shape enablers’
• A ‘national coach’
• Access to ‘subject experts’
• Face to face learning workshops
• Online support
• A ‘knowledge hub’
• Data and evaluation workshops
• A ‘knowledge management centre’

If you glazed over halfway through that list, I strongly recommend you go back and read the whole lot. It really is a masterpiece of its type. It’s a jargon word-salad. It’s speed-bullshit bingo. It’s what you get if SPADs binge-watch a whole series of The Thick of It, and then jump into a taxi at their own expense, only to be released when they’ve dreamed enough bullet-bollox to pad out a press release.

For example: in ‘opportunity to help shape enablers’ – is ‘shape’ a verb or a noun and, either way, how come it still doesn’t mean anything? Is a ‘national coach’ a person to help us, or a vehicle to ferry rural patients to their ‘neighbourhood health hub’? Is the knowledge management centre at the top of a mountain somewhere? And so on.

Wow. If I was involved in one of these pilots, I would be very afraid. There’s a lot of pontification on offer, but not much practicality. What about facts around funding, contractual issues, workforce, infrastructure, aims, leadership? Oh. I see. That’s for the pilot to find out.

Good luck with that. I suspect the scheme is going to generate more questions than answers, and the most FAQ will be: ‘Why the hell did we get into this?’ At least, with a national coach, subject experts, a knowledge hub, learning workshops, online support and a knowledge management centre, you’ll know who to ask.

Dr Copperfield is a GP in Essex. Read more of his blogs here