News

Monday
Have been invited to an all day seminar by our new strategic health authority. Not sure what to expect but the event appears to be well attended by all sorts of local health and social services luminaries. Needless to say I recognise none of them. I glaze over when the first presentation begins: "I'm here to discuss with you the synergies and tensions, in the form of both threats and opportunities, at the critical interface between localised, community based primary care services and clustered, focused secondary and acute provision." What? Answers on a postcard please.

Tuesday
Bump into an old colleague. For a moment I don't recognise him. He had been seconded to housing to help set up a customer care scheme for council tenants and jumped at being seconded into a different field a few months ago. "I should have done it years ago," he tells me looking relaxed and in a great mood. I promise to meet him for lunch some time, safe in the knowledge that it will never happen. I don't have time for lunch.

Wednesday
Trying to find the meeting room at a local hospital this morning proving to be difficult. I wander aimlessly around the massive institution. There are hardly any signs and those that are there direct me to places that don't exist. There is no one to ask either and it seems you have to be totally institutionalised to know where anything is in here. Finally, I ask a very polite gentleman, don't know whether he is a staff member or service user, for some directions. He is very helpful and I eventually find the venue, half an hour late. It is sparsely attended. How many of my colleagues are still wandering the corridors?

Thursday

My council is keen on extolling our virtues and raising the profile of the area. While I agree with this in principle, it's sometimes difficult to reconcile the reality with the rhetoric. Go to the employee forum: a huge event where the achievements of the authority over the past year are shared and celebrated. But some of my colleagues are in a militant mood and are tired of the spin. Their concern is for their jobs, the future of their children's education, the fact that the council's leisure facilities seem to be falling apart and that you can forget getting good services if you are a wheelchair user. During the questions and answers some blunt questions are flannelled by the panel and people vote with their feet and disperse long before it is due to end. Someone needs to take notice.

Friday
Enough of work. One of the things I love most is live music and tonight I see an artist I greatly admire. The show is everything I expect and is utterly inspiring. I walk out into the cool night air feeling like an excited 15 year old (again). It's a fantastic feeling. Only wish this feeling could be created in the work place.