Letter: ‘Table top’ caring

The case of Ken Maitland, who had 106 carers in a year (your report, 19 May), is another depressing demonstration of what passes for management in our public services.

It is “table top” stuff, based on the assumption that the people at the top know best.

Politicians sit round a table with advisers to form policies, then call in departmental managers to devise plans and to set targets.

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Then bureaucrats, without moving from their offices, break the total task into lists of duties to be carried out by front-line staff.

Equality and health and safety concerns can easily be factored in. Nothing could be more straightforward.

But when a carer steps into old Mr McGregor’s living room she is no longer charged with caring for the old man, but with carrying out set tasks as laid down by management. Once those tasks are complete she puts in her work sheet.

Her manager then reports upwards through a succession of managers that the work has been done. Each one, including the politician at the top, is satisfied: the policy has been carried out. Meanwhile, Mr McGregor shakes in his bed at the thought of another stranger washing him down.

We don’t need reviews by management. Management is the problem.

The solution is to let carers care. Then we can get rid of 90 per cent of managers.

For, as a senior politician said of the Ministry of Health, who needs them when the folk on the frontline can see the need and have the freedom and resources to meet them?

Bryan Webster

Houndlaw Park

Eyemouth

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