A skit prompted by my visits to Chelsea and Westminster NHS Foundation Trust board meetings and the hit TV series "Yes, minister"! which starred
• Paul Eddington – The Right Honourable James Hacker MP
• Nigel Hawthorne – Sir Humphrey Appleby
• Derek Fowlds – Bernard Woolley
First published: 7th July 2018
Scene: The Minister's office
Hacker: Now Bernard, what are we going to do about this Openness and Accountability thingy?
Bernard: In what way, Minister?
Hacker: I’ve had another of those complaints from that pesky Bell character. Keeps banging on about suggestions he’s made and which I’ve ignored, it seems.
Sir Humphrey: We could use the standard naval tactics, Minister.
Hacker: Standard naval tactics? What’s that?
Sir Humphrey: Flat denial, followed by personal abuse.
Hacker: Bit late for that. Seems he’s only gone and got hold of my email to you saying it was a good idea and not to bat it away.
Sir Humphrey: How did he do that?
Bernard: Subject Access Request. They’ve been around for a while but now after the EU pushed the GDPR on us, they’re free and have to be dealt with within one month.
Hacker: Good God! Who on earth decided to let the public have that sort of power. Ridiculous.
Sir Humphrey: Well, Minister, actually …
Hacker: Well, we’re just going to have to do something about this openness and accountability issue and start inviting the public in to our meetings.
Sir Humphrey: Could I advise caution, Minister, we don’t want to get carried away.
Hacker: But it’s been departmental policy for the last five years …
Sir Humphrey: Indeed, Minister, but it takes time to turn policy in to action. There is a process to go through. We don’t want to rush these things.
Hacker: Anyway, how is it I can never find the blessed meeting room?
Sir Humphrey: Well Minister there are the security implications of course.
Hacker: What security implications – we have met in the same room for the last two years?
Sir Humphrey: Well, Minister – we need to maintain a degree of flexibility in case a large number of the public turn up unexpectedly …
Hacker: And the room is at the end of a long corridor up two flights of stairs behind a locked door …
Sir Humphrey: Unfortunately, the usual meeting room on the ground floor is not available.
Bernard (interrupting): And the door is not actually locked. It just looks like it is locked.
Hacker: Why is the usual meeting room not available?
Sir Humphrey: Well you instructed the Trust to make cost savings Minister. And they responded by closing the ground floor offices and relocating the staff to the other main site 20 miles away.
Hacker: I did that.
Sir Humphrey: Well it was department policy at the time …
Hacker: That’s just madness
Sir Humphrey: Far be it for me, a mere civil servant, to comment adversely on department policy.
Hacker: And there are no notices on the door
Sir Humphrey: Unfortunately, it seems that they got held up at the printers awaiting your approval
Hacker: But I have never seen any damn posters
Bernard: Probably an oversight, Minister
Hacker: What about advertising the meeting on the website then?
Sir Humphrey: Well Minister we are in the middle of a radical overhaul of the website to improve its usability and ease of access
Bernard: it has taken some time to complete the beta testing with service users
Sir Humphrey: We are In the process of finding some service users that we could trust to tell us what we want to hear about the new user interface. Anyway, it is already advertised on the website. You just have to know what you are looking for. And we need to credit the general public with some gumption. If they are interested enough to attend then they can darn well spend a bit of time searching around the website to find out when and where the next meeting is, can’t they. We don’t have to do everything for them. And then there is the Health and Safety aspect?
Hacker: What Health and Safety aspect?
Bernard: Well, when the public do turn up they keep disturbing the meeting by getting up all the time and going to the toilet. It appears that several of them were lost and just wandered in to the room thinking it was the waiting room for the genito-urinary clinic which is just down the corridor.
Hacker: Why don’t the reception staff know where the meeting is? So they can guide the public to the right room?
Sir Humphrey: Reception staff are not routinely advised – information is disseminated on a need to know policy
Hacker: But it’s a public meeting!
Sir Humphrey: Well actually No Minister. It’s a meeting held in public and not a public meeting which is something rather different. If it was a public meeting, then we would have to go to some effort to get the public to attend. But the law requires only that we hold a meeting in public which does not mean we actually have to have the public there at all. They just have to theoretically have the opportunity to be there, if they wish. So we are really doing all that we can Minister.
Hacker: So what I am going to tell this Bell chap then?
Sir Humphrey: I am sure you will think of something Minister!
[If you have ever visited Chelsea and Westminster Hospital you will know that there is a reception desk at the front entrance. When I arrived to ask where the Board meeting was being held, the staff on reception had no idea. They had no idea that there was a public meeting being held. So I had to search for a possible location. Walking down the long corridor in the basement I noticed an open door on my right where several people appeared to be gathering. There was tea and coffee on offer, so I turned in to the room and helped myself to a cup of tea. Hidden around the corner was a meeting table and so I took my place on some seats and yes, I had found the board meeting. No notices. No-one greeting the public. I had to leave before the end of the meeting and, as I left, the Chair said to me, Thank you for coming, Mr Bell. (I had not told anyone my name!)
At a subsequent meeting held at Middlesex Hospital, the meeting was indeed at the end of a corridor, up a flight of stairs, and again with no notice of the meeting anywhere in sight. Staff on reception had no idea there was a public meeting.
I wrote an email to the Chair of the Trust providing some suggestions as to how they might encourage more members of the public and members of the Trust, as this was a Foundation Trust, to attend and observe meetings. A Subject Access Request revealed that the Chair had forwarded my email on, I think, to the Chief Executive, suggesting that it not "be batted away" as there were some useful ideas in it. Hence the above skit.]