The Importance Of Bureaucracy

In Britain today, public sector workers and particularly those in charge of anything, have an absolute belief in their own moral superiority. When something goes wrong, they are most concerned that no blame is attached and no-one is held accountable. Public officials are, they feel, saints who only have the purist of motives. If something goes wrong, it cannot be their fault.

So, to hear that Kettering Hospital puts its 'reputation' above patients lives is no surprise, really. A young girl has an operation to remove her appendix and subsequently bleeds to death. A number of issues of hand-over and handwriting are mentioned, but the glaring omission in the 'care' provided was the gap between her last observation and when they found her dead - nine hours.

Although the hospital carried out an investigation into what happened, it will not disclose the contents of that report to protect their staff whose mental health might otherwise be endangered. It has the added benefit of being able to hide who might be responsible and exactly what went wrong. After all, what purpose would knowing that serve? None of the saints and angels involved meant any harm.

I can't help thinking that many of the problems in our public services would be at least lessened if not completely cured, if public servants were held to account in the same way private firms are. Come to that, the politicians could be required to fall in line too, or pay the price. But I think that really is the block on reform. MP's will not countenance any suggestion that they should be accountable! Elections are bad enough, what with all the twaddle required to deceive voters!

And in the end Kettering Hospital upholds its reputation by not letting you know how bad it really is and no changes will be made for the better, because it was only an accident and as no one, but the victims family, suffered no-one will be that concerned if it happens again. As long as the cloak of invisibility is still available to the guilty parties.

Remember, whilst you might struggle to forgive yourself if there was an accident in which someone died, but where you could have done nothing to help, these people through indolence and a criminal level of negligence have allowed a death that was preventable in all likelihood and they continue to turn up to collect their wages despite being woefully inadequate.