Forum
Article Type: Forum From: Social Care and Neurodisability, Volume 3, Issue 2
Welcome to the Forum section of Social Care and Neurodisability,your opportunity to post-responses to articles from previous issues and to raise awareness of forthcoming events, consultations and policy initiatives. This edition of the Forum has been compiled by Dr Keith Jenkins, who looks forward to your responses by e-mail or post.
Dr Keith G. Jenkins, CPsychol, CSci, AFBPsS, National Brain Injury Centre, St Andrew’s Healthcare, Northampton, NN1 5DG, Tel.: +44 (0)1604 616767,e-mail: kjenkins@standrew.co.uk
Doublespeak 2012?
For this edition of the Forum, I set out with the intention of highlighting the increasing incidence of the use of “doublespeak” within the world of health and social care. That is, the use of language intended to disguise,distort or obscure the actual meaning of an utterance. The term doublespeak is based upon the similar terms “doublethink” and “newspeak”,which were coined by George Orwell in his increasingly prophetic novel, “1984”. Some extreme examples, or alleged examples of doublespeak, courtesy of the world wide web include:
“placed on non-duty, non-pay status”, i.e. fired!
“ground mounted confirmatory route markers”, i.e. road signs!
“chronologically experienced citizens”, i.e. the elderly/older adults!
To explore doublespeak in health and social care, I had planned to begin with reminding readers that the Conservative Party Manifesto for the 2010 election had not described proposed changes to the NHS, and that the electorate had been falsely reassured. Wrong! If there is/was doublespeak around this particular issue it did not originate in the outlined Manifesto commitments to reform the NHS. The Telegraph online (www.telegraph.co.uk/news/election-2010/7165000/conservative-manifesto.html)summarises the conservative pre-election pledges on health as follows:
Overall spending on the NHS will rise every year, the Tory manifesto confirms. It also promises managerial reforms to make the service more efficient. But the Tory plans also suggest creating new bureaucracy and rules. NHS staff will be “properly accountable to patients”, the document says. Patients will be able to rate hospitals and doctors. A quango called HealthWatch will investigate complaints. The document also promises that GPs’pay will be “linked to the quality of their results”. But it gives no detail on how the results will be assessed.
Specific health policies include:
Scrapping all politically motivated targets.
Putting more detailed NHS performance data online.
Improving cancer and stroke survival rates.
Enabling patients to rate hospitals and doctors.
Giving anyone the power to choose any healthcare provider that meets NHS standards.
Putting patients in charge of their own health records.
Opening up the NHS to new independent and voluntary sector providers.
Linking GPs’ pay to the quality of results they deliver.
It looks to me, therefore, that those of us who may have felt that the massive changes to the NHS have arrived as some kind of post-election rabbit out of the hat, have got it wrong. Although of course, the devil has been in the detail of how these pledges have been put into practice.
But let me return to my opening theme of doublespeak in health and social care, that is saying one thing but meaning another because there is some confirmatory evidence:
“It is not about the money”, when discussing a change to cheaper service provision, i.e. it is about the money!
“more from less or working smart”, i.e. sacking/moving staff and working harder!
“personalisation”, i.e. focusing upon individuals so that collective needs are missed/ignored, and handing over a (inadequate) budget substituting for decent, planned service provision!
“Continuing healthcare eligibility assessment”, i.e. when can we cut your healthcare?!
I am sure that you have experienced many other examples of how our unique human gift for communication is similarly distorted for a range of ends. It now looks to me as if the changes to health and social care that are now being delivered are not the unexpected endpoint of some electoral misinformation. So in a similar spirit of “honesty” let’s stop the creeping doublespeak that now seems to accompany implementation, and address the challenges of change openly and maturely. If you are working with people that have neurodisability, or you are a relative or the person with neurodisability,now is the time to seek to contribute to the local work that is starting to put into place the new ways of commissioning your services. Check out the work of the Neurological Alliance (www.neural.org.uk/) and the United Kingdom Acquired Brain Injury Forum (www.ukabif.org.uk/) for pointers as to what you can do, and see if you have a local acquired brain injury Forum or regional neurological alliance group that you can work with.
Why not tell me how you feel about these issues, or how your particular area of neurodisability is being affected by economic and organisational changes by writing to the Forum.
Forthcoming events/announcements
Kettering Conference Centre, 18 and 19 May 2012
Northamptonshire Acquired Brain Injury Forum Conference (ABIF). Day One– Neurorehabilitation Past, Present and Future; Day Two – Living with Acquired Brain Injury. Web site: www.abifnorthants.co.uk
The Queens Hotel, Leeds, 24 May 2012
The Leeds Conference 2012: Fraud and Exaggeration in Personal Injury Claims. E-mail: jackie@thebeehivepartnership.com
Royal Hospital for Neurodisability, London, 14 June 2012
Open Lecture: Huntington’s Disease – How Does Good Quality Care Really Make a Difference?
The Convention Centre, Dublin, 17-21 June 2012
16th International Congress of Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorders. Web site: www.mdscongress2012.org
St Andrew’s Hospital, Northampton, 5 July 2012
Young People with Brain Injury – Is There a Gap in the System? Web site: www.stah.org/about-us/latest-events.aspx
Centre Conventions International Barcelona (CCIB), Spain, 14-18 July 2012
8th FENS Forum of European Neuroscience. Web site: fens2012.neurosciences.asso.fr
Manchester Central Convention Complex, 5-7 September 2012
8th International Conference on Frontotemporal Dementias. Web site: www2.kenes.com/ftd2012/Pages/Home.aspx
Conference Centre, University of Worcester, 5-7 September 2012
7th International Conference on Creative Expression, Communication and Dementia. Web site: www.cecd-society.org/research/2012/about.html
Royal Hospital for Neurodisability, London, 13 September 2012
Open Lecture – Boccia: Why, What & How? A Sport for Individuals with Complex Disabilities.
Royal Hospital for Neurodisability, London, 21 September 2012
Tracheostomy & Dysphagia in Complex Brain Injury.
Royal Hospital for Neurodisability, London, 17-18 October 2012
Positioning for Function.
Royal Hospital for Neurodisability, London, 29 October 2012
Overview of the Principles of Assessment & Management of Patients with Disorder of Consciousness and Introduction to SMART.
Royal Hospital for Neurodisability, London, 29 October-2 November 2012
SMART Assessor Training.
National Motorcycle Museum, Birmingham, 13 November 2012
The 4th Annual UKABIF Conference. Web site: www.ukabif.org.uk/ukabif-annual-conference
Brain Injury Social Work Group (BISWG) Bursaries
Each financial year BISWG Ltd will be offering two exceptional bursaries of£1,000 for international conferences and 16 bursaries of £500 to attend training and conferences in the UK (www.biswg.co.uk/html/bursaries.html).
And finally
If you would like your event(s) featured, send an e-mail with details at least three months before the event to allow for publication lead times.
If you have any questions or opinions that you would like to share with the wider neurodisability community, why not send them into the Forum.
I look forward to hearing from you.
Dr Keith G. Jenkis
