Good blog. Reminds me of that project I saw trumpted by the Improvement Academy a few years ago that gave all staff smart badges which detected the staff had visited a hand washing station. It was designed to set of a warning system if staff entered the petients bed area without having washed thier hands. Fantatsic if reducing infection rates is the focus and who wouldnt want to do that? Terrifing if you think about the potential damage to trust and relationship within the hospital.

Yes reminds me of the work I did with the museum of mental health. In the process of rediscovering the content and stories in this forgotten museum the reoccuring theme that struck me was “with the best of intentions”. It was these that founded the asylums fueled by the methodists reactions to the detention of two of their members in awful conditions. And asymlums did provide just that, a safe place where people were encouraged to eat well, be in touch with nature and take up meaningful work ( sounds a bit familiar now but maybe we forgot in the intervening period!). Through the history of health & care we can look back and be appauled ,but most of it was done with the best of intentions of the time. I think the issue arises when we think we understand the problem and have got it sorted. We forget to keep reimagining and challenging the core assumptions and our definition of the problem we are trying to find the answer to.