Sowing the seeds of… what exactly?

Given everything else in the summer of 2020, the story of the seeds was easy to overlook. First talked about in that hotbed of news, the Veg Gardening UK Facebook group, dozens of stories soon followed of people receiving surprise packets of seeds in the post from China.

By July these ‘sinister, unsolicited packs’ were being reported in the Daily Mail, cases were spreading to the US, with one Louisianian, Chris Alwhite, receiving 519 of them.

The FBI got involved. US and Chinese diplomats compared puzzled notes. Amazon banned the import of plants into the US.

Strange truth

Was it biological warfare? A marketing scam? The truth, as wonderfully told by Chris Heath in the Atlantic, was stranger yet. People had ordered them. And then forgot. Bought in a (perhaps unknowing) flap at the start of the pandemic, these orders had spent months quietly waiting for their Chinese factories to reopen, then splurged across the planet.

“By the time the distorted ripples of cause and effect make their way back to us,” Heath writes, “we may no longer recognize that we were the ones who threw a stone into the water.”

I read this in 2021 and haven’t been able to shake it since. What is it about us humans that makes it easier to believe in global conspiracy than it is to check our own order history? Just blaming it on poor memory is too easy. There’s something deeper about personal agency, and our ability (or preference?) to more readily believe someone else is responsible for something we don’t understand.

By the time the distorted ripples of cause and effect make their way back to us we may no longer recognise that we were the ones who threw a stone into the water.

Even with an attendance dented by strikes, last week’s ConfedExpo remained the largest shindig in the NHS leadership calendar, featuring more chief execs per square inch than in any other space at any other time. This is the NHS leadership community, together. So why does it leave me thinking about seeds?

That the NHS isn’t in a good place isn’t news. Take your pick from a sea of troubles: burnout, waiting lists, life expectancy in reverse, it’s not pretty out there.

Yet Manchester Central was strangely silent on the cause behind these effects. The leaders’ leaders – NHS England chief exec Amanda Pritchard, Health Secretary Steve Barclay – might have shed some light perhaps? That their speeches were standing room only, even if you wanted to watch on TV, is a sign of how much their perspective was sought.

What about the actions of the leadership community themselves as a cause? What I find more interesting than the answer, is that the question wasn’t even posed.

Self-reflection needed

Yes, there were sessions on workforce retention, and GP access, and many other hot topics. But there were similar sessions last year – and before Covid too. Should there not be a smidgeon of self-reflection on whether, as a community, we’d made the progress we’d hoped – and if not, why not?

In another event, at another time, we’ve been proud at Kaleidoscope to support the – frankly astounding – work of Jane O’Hara and team in supporting involvement after safety events in healthcare.

This is work that nourishes the soul. Seeking to fix a system that can cause hurt to all it touches: families, staff, investigators. Giving the time and space to listen to individuals’ real, often visceral, stories. Building a community of people committed to play their part in genuine change.

Rising pain levels

Healthcare is not just another industry. It deals in the business of human emotion so strong, so blinding, that it’s much easier to shade our eyes from the glare than to follow the path of Jane and others in staring it full in the face. This is particularly the case for the NHS in 2023, where the level of pain felt both by those receiving and giving care is significantly higher than in previous years.

For me, ConfedExpo illustrated the – perfectly human – shields we reach for to protect ourselves. Not to look too closely. To enjoy the comfort of national policy over the intensity of the individual story. To hope for a miracle cure (AI all round!) to solve our woes. To become an observer rather than a participant.

Yet however hard it is, as a leadership community we need to learn a better way to comprehend both the NHS’s current level of pain, but also our collective responsibility for how it came to be where it is now, and our role in how it will be in the future.

We are not victims of ripples of cause and effect beyond our control. The packets arriving now are those we ordered.