The Psychiatrist (2008) 32: 195. doi: 10.1192/pb.32.5.195
© 2008 The Royal College of Psychiatrists
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Correspondence

New Ways of Working

Dave Anderson, Chair, Faculty of Old Age Psychiatry

Mersey Care National Health Service Trust, Older People’s Mental Health Services, Sir Douglas Crawford Unit, Mossley Hill Hospital, Park Avenue, Liverpool L18 8BU, email: Helen.Bickerton{at}merseycare.nhs.uk

Being told that New Ways of Working is a new way of working is not enlightening (tautologies are true but rarely helpful) but demonstrates the problem - it is whatever you decide it is.

Redefining the role of a psychiatrist is fine but Vize et al (Psychiatric Bulletin, February 2008, 32, 44-45) provide another tautology - ‘a role that encopmasses the full scope of the work in which psychiatrists could be involved’. What people do is whatever is decided they do but this statement does not give a new ‘what’.

New Ways of Working arose from a crisis in consultant recruitment, a mismatch between consultant expansion and training numbers (Goldberg, 2008); from perceived necessity, not choice, and as such it is a pragmatic business solution to a particular demand and resource problem, not better patient care. Changing roles is not new and was happening throughout medicine. Let’s be honest, not grandiose.

New Ways of Working is now used to legitimise redesign of any sort with services being destroyed for business reasons. Is it person centred or organisation centred? To improve the lives of psychiatrists or patients? Ironically, we will soon overproduce psychiatrists under Modernising Medical Careers while facing an impending crisis of nurse shortage.

Alternative ways of working are essential because solutions to the problems of one person, service, specialty or point in time may not be the solution for others.

Vize et al must be clear not only what New Ways of Working is but also what it is not. Otherwise, it becomes whatever people, including primary care trusts and trust managers, decide it is. Everything is good because it is New Ways of Working. However, ‘new’ is not enough and ‘new’ is not necessarily good!

References

  1. GOLDBERG, D. (2008) Improved investment in mental health services: value for money? British Journal of Psychiatry, 192, 88 -91.[Abstract/Free Full Text]

Related articles in The Psychiatrist:

New Ways of Working: time to get off the fence
Christine Vize, Stephen Humphries, Janet Brandling, and Willm Mistral
The Psychiatrist 2008 32: 44-45. [Full Text]  




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