IOM DHSC & MANX CARE

[cissolt]

21 hours ago, Dr. Grumpy said:

 

As a Manxman and Manx taxpayer, are you comfortable with the insane amounts of money being thrown at this so called transformation? Or the succession of UK based managers and consultants walking away with unbelivable amounts of money while allegedly making plans to outsource a lot of care?

That is a huge concern. 

As is the potential £1,000,000 fine that Manx care will have to pay if they can't fix these data protection issues.  Its simple failures on a recurring basis.

 

[Gladys]

5 minutes ago, cissolt said:

That is a huge concern. 

As is the potential £1,000,000 fine that Manx care will have to pay if they can't fix these data protection issues.  Its simple failures on a recurring basis.

 

I would rather a fine was paid than another consultancy was engaged to sort out these problems.  Their recommendations will most likely be ignored or implemented  on a selective basis.  At least with a fine the money just moves from one pocket to another, but perhaps the embarrassment will spur some real action and results?

[Bandits]

On 4/23/2022 at 8:41 PM, Richard Wild said:

Others have described the situation well in terms of what needs to be done. There is a lot of training and awareness required to bring things into an appropriate level of compliance.  It is a very challenging environment but I believe we will get there.

Sorry but I’ve GDPR trained a lot of staff in the last year. In most businesses staff are told that breaches in GDPR will cost their employers money and that they need to carefully observe the GDPR policies that are part of the company handbook. The environment isn’t challenging at all. You tell people what the law is and what they need to do. And that if they don’t do it, it’s a disciplinary offense. I’d be relatively sure nobody I’ve trained would email over 2,000 people with one individuals personal data. And if they did they’d be on a written warning if they were stupid enough to do it again. Why does the civil service always over complicate the difficulties? It’s not difficult at all. 

[Two-lane]

On 4/23/2022 at 8:41 PM, Richard Wild said:

I take full responsibility for the breach.

This is a phrase that is often used by bosses in recent years. Something in the company gets screwed up. The boss stands up, puffs out his chest, and proudly states "I am responsible". Then nothing happens. Nothing changes. In my view this is an arrogant statement - the boss is just saying that he is untouchable.

Over the years, the IoM gov. computer department has given me some real eye-rolling moments.

Someone put a virus-infected floppy into a PC inside the gov.'s firewall. All the computers in that area went down until they had all been disinfected.

Someone put a flash drive into a PC USB port and downloaded a fair amount of data onto it. Then walked out of the building with the data in their pocket.

Someone pressed the send-all button and sent out a large amount of personal data (more than once, actually, and with Cannan giving them a slating).

At the time of the floppy event, the company I was working at required me to hand over floppies to the computer-people who scanned it and uploaded the data to my account on the big computer. The desktop PCs had floppy drives but they had been disabled by removing the connector cables inside the case. It should come as no surprise to readers of this forum that a 200 or so employee company had a more security-conscious computer dept. than that of this government.

When the flash drive event occurred, obviously the PC USB ports were still unlocked (what are the odds that they are still unlocked).

The release of data from the Income Tax dept. and the recently mentioned Manx Care data breach could have been avoided simply by having an emailer that has critical operations either disabled or with an interlock.

This is relatively easy to do. If someone says that it necessary to spend millions on a brand new mega-system just so a different emailer can be used, I suppose I am just going to have another eye-rolling moment.

A new system is no doubt necessary, but basic, obvious stuff seems not have been done.

I doubt that Wild is any more competent than his predecessors, and if he thinks he is there are some pretty obvious questions that could be asked.

His history is unclear to me. He states above that "I make no secret about working on the National Programme. I was a young technical architect...", on a project that started in 2005.
In the cv clip earlier in this thread it says "Returning to the UK in 2002, Richard became the Lead Security Architect at the Cabinet Office". I suppose working at the UK Cabinet Office is trivial stuff.

 

[Boo Gay'n]

On 4/23/2022 at 10:45 PM, Dr. Grumpy said:

Thank you Mr Wild, You've earned my respect by engaging with us forumers, accepting responsibility and by clarifying the queries.

Would you clarify a few more things please?

Did you know Sir Jonathan when he was with BT Health?

Did you have anything to do with him being asked to review IOM Health service? I don't remember seeing any calls to tender or similar.

As a Manxman and Manx taxpayer, are you comfortable with the insane amounts of money being thrown at this so called transformation? Or the succession of UK based managers and consultants walking away with unbelivable amounts of money while allegedly making plans to outsource a lot of care?

I am happy to be corrected if I've got this wrong. Thank you.

It is interesting that Mr Wild has not responded to your questions.

In health and social care circles it is widely considered (if not known) that Richy and Jonny knew each other before the latter’s project in the Isle of Man.  Richy introduced him to Alf Cannan – the review was sponsored by Treasury and not the DHSC – and, lo and behold, the Michael Review is suddenly foisted on us without any questions asked, a competitive exercise to find the best consultant/s or any due diligence about Jonny’s background and achievements.  Richy trotted round at his side whenever Jonny was on the island.  At very great expense, as you say, its is then recommended that we adopt the English Lansley reforms which were already totally discredited across.

Almost three years later (yes, three) nothing has improved and many things are worse, and COVID can’t simply be blamed for that.  Was the review value for money?  No.

Look at the front page of today’s Examiner, which shows that 62% of medics say that the Isle of Man is not a good place to work.  If one of the key professional groups feels that, it is clear that all the money thrown at our healthcare system and all of the expensive new hires have achieved nothing.  This whole saga makes me angry and really sad.

[Andy Onchan]

22 minutes ago, Boo Gay'n said:

It is interesting that Mr Wild has not responded to your questions.

In health and social care circles it is widely considered (if not known) that Richy and Jonny knew each other before the latter’s project in the Isle of Man.  Richy introduced him to Alf Cannan – the review was sponsored by Treasury and not the DHSC – and, lo and behold, the Michael Review is suddenly foisted on us without any questions asked, a competitive exercise to find the best consultant/s or any due diligence about Jonny’s background and achievements.  Richy trotted round at his side whenever Jonny was on the island.  At very great expense, as you say, its is then recommended that we adopt the English Lansley reforms which were already totally discredited across.

Almost three years later (yes, three) nothing has improved and many things are worse, and COVID can’t simply be blamed for that.  Was the review value for money?  No.

Look at the front page of today’s Examiner, which shows that 62% of medics say that the Isle of Man is not a good place to work.  If one of the key professional groups feels that, it is clear that all the money thrown at our healthcare system and all of the expensive new hires have achieved nothing.  This whole saga makes me angry and really sad.

Wow! Just wow!

Any thoughts I might have had about AC improving IOMG transparency have now just vanished. 

[Ghost Ship]

On 4/23/2022 at 10:18 PM, craggy_steve said:

Politician was Tony Blair, IT Salesman was Bill Gates. 

https://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/Papers/npfit-mpp-2014-case-history.pdf
 

 

On 4/23/2022 at 2:51 PM, Dr. Grumpy said:

I don't know for sure but am trying to find out.

Reading this now

Thank you both.  Those are two interesting documents.  For me it's like deja vu all over again...

This excerpt from the document linked to by Dr Grumpy confirms what I'd heard:

"The motivation to commence NPfIT came from Cabinet level and it's hard to argue against the fact that many of its aims were entirely laudable. But there is a big gap between laudability and deliverability. The decision to commence any project - let alone one which will transform a fundamental building block of a nation's healthcare system - must be made by the right people who really know about the issues involved. It's unfortunate for civil servants** and the departments they run that they have to carry the can for projects devised by ministers that often only make sense on the political drawing board and are almost impossible to translate into reality"

What I find interesting is that I was also involved in the local implementation of the national Electronic Staff Record (ESR) programme - which was also a top-down project - but that all seemed to go swimmingly well.  As I recall it only had a single provider (McKesson?) but from my trust's point of view it was very well managed externally and internally.

 

**Except on the IoM politicians have to carry the can for their civil servants?

[craggy_steve]

1 minute ago, Ghost Ship said:

 

Thank you both.  Those are two interesting documents.  For me it's like deja vu all over again...

This excerpt from the document linked to by Dr Grumpy confirms what I'd heard:

"The motivation to commence NPfIT came from Cabinet level and it's hard to argue against the fact that many of its aims were entirely laudable. But there is a big gap between laudability and deliverability. The decision to commence any project - let alone one which will transform a fundamental building block of a nation's healthcare system - must be made by the right people who really know about the issues involved. It's unfortunate for civil servants** and the departments they run that they have to carry the can for projects devised by ministers that often only make sense on the political drawing board and are almost impossible to translate into reality"

What I find interesting is that I was also involved in the local implementation of the national Electronic Staff Record (ESR) programme - which was also a top-down project - but that all seemed to go swimmingly well.  As I recall it only had a single provider (McKesson?) but from my trust's point of view it was very well managed externally and internally.

 

**Except on the IoM politicians have to carry the can for their civil servants?

A story from an acquaintance ... few years ago so not verbatim, but definitely the gist ...

"I was summoned to 10 Downing St, and sat on the sofa in Tony Blair's office while he explained to me the vision for NPfIT, and asked me to be the Programme Director. I questioned the resources and finances and [they] explained the budget, five and a half billion or so, which was all for systems development. I asked about the budget for staff engagement and training, explaining that I thought these were essential for the programme to succeed  and would need funding. Tony replied that the NHS staff were 'our employees and will do what they're told'. I turned down the job because I didn't see how I could succeed without significant effort in bringing NHS staff on board".

Anyway, therein was the foundation for failure of NPfIT, it never stood a chance, crippled from the outset by an authoritarian politician as project sponsor.

[Bandits]

3 hours ago, Boo Gay'n said:

It is interesting that Mr Wild has not responded to your questions.

You won’t get a response either. It’s like the sad defense of what is clearly non-existent training and procedures around GDPR above. It’s all ‘very difficult’ you know and yet every company in the world has had to do these ‘very difficult’ things otherwise they’d be fined by government. I think a lot of people are getting fed up of the couldn’t give a **** attitude from government about everything coming out of government currently. They’ll be blaming covid for at least the next 15 years as an excuse why something or other hasn’t been done. Or why they simply can’t be arsed doing anything ‘too difficult’. 

[Ghost Ship]

8 hours ago, craggy_steve said:

A story from an acquaintance ... few years ago so not verbatim, but definitely the gist ...

"I was summoned to 10 Downing St, and sat on the sofa in Tony Blair's office while he explained to me the vision for NPfIT, and asked me to be the Programme Director. I questioned the resources and finances and [they] explained the budget, five and a half billion or so, which was all for systems development. I asked about the budget for staff engagement and training, explaining that I thought these were essential for the programme to succeed  and would need funding. Tony replied that the NHS staff were 'our employees and will do what they're told'. I turned down the job because I didn't see how I could succeed without significant effort in bringing NHS staff on board".

Anyway, therein was the foundation for failure of NPfIT, it never stood a chance, crippled from the outset by an authoritarian politician as project sponsor.

And thanks for that aricle you linked to earlier from Cambridge University.  A nostalgic read.

It confirms (1) what I recall from the time, and (2) what a negative effect Blair had on the NHS.  (Although to be fair to him, Brown was worse... )

It seems to me though, that unlike the UK, Manx civil servants don't have to pick up the pieces of politician's pie in the sky pipe-dreams.  Isn't the boot on the other foot over there?

[cissolt]

https://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-news/manx-care-really-disappointed-over-leaked-survey-feedback/

Some pretty damning responses in the survey.  The toxic treatment of people who do speak out is a damning indictment of the culture.  Is this a new problem? Or inherited from DHSS?

I imagine a full anonymous survey would show the feelings are echoed across all departments.

Our health service is the worst I have known in my lifetime, the problems predate covid.

[Banker]

14 minutes ago, cissolt said:

https://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-news/manx-care-really-disappointed-over-leaked-survey-feedback/

Some pretty damning responses in the survey.  The toxic treatment of people who do speak out is a damning indictment of the culture.  Is this a new problem? Or inherited from DHSS?

I imagine a full anonymous survey would show the feelings are echoed across all departments.

Our health service is the worst I have known in my lifetime, the problems predate covid.

But wasn’t the survey only answered by 49 out of 300 doctors so small %.

My experience of internal surveys is that they are mostly answered by those unhappy about something or someone 

[Bandits]

26 minutes ago, cissolt said:

I imagine a full anonymous survey would show the feelings are echoed across all departments.

An anon survey would be interesting. The likely irony here is that the department is that well known for bullying that a lot of people probably didn’t complete the survey for fear of being bullied if their names were known. That’s probably why the response rate was that low. 

[The Chief]

These moaning Dr's seem to be quite happy taking the inflated paypackets they get for working here. Just saying.

Hospitals all over the country desperate for trained and competent Dr's, also just saying.

Edited April 27, 2022 by The Chief

[Jarndyce]

Chief Exec says her door is always open.   But you’d have to be brave to express an opinion in the current culture, when you know that you’ll emerge from her office with a target on your back.