Conditional #love

It's been interesting to follow the #we love the nhs twitter campaign.

I love the way web 2.0 can support and stimulate quick, powerful campaigns like this, and how it can take the wind out the sails of expensive right wing campaigns.

But I also wonder why things always end up so polarised, and why people have to talk in extremes.  You'd think the NHS was perfect, the way that a lot of people are talking about it.  If your life has been saved, or the life of someone close to you, then you have every right to be eternally grateful, and perhaps slightly over-the-top in your assessment of the service as a whole.

But it's far from perfect.  Anyone can see that.  And I believe you can make a stronger case for the NHS by being as frank about its failings as you are about its massive upsides.  Let's not forget it costs us a bloody fortune, and I for one have not been happy with a good amount of the service that I've had from the NHS.  

My doctors, my dentist, pre-natal care, children's A & E - all of those experiences have been average to unacceptable.  Yet other services - notably how my sister was looked after time and again with childhood asthma - were outstanding.  And, importantly, "free".  

I think you can win debates more easily if you're honest about your weak points as well as your strengths.  

Comments

[Julian Dobson]

Good points as usual, Rob.

I think what Twitter does well (and I was following this too) is provide an outlet for an instant and sometimes quite visceral response to things that shock or outrage - in this case the appalling arguments about healthcare being advanced in the US. What it doesn't do very well is considered, nuanced reflection.

But the point about the NHS campaign is not that the NHS is perfect. It's that your experiences of healthcare, good, bad or indifferent, were at least funded and provided in a way that makes them accessible as of right, not because you happen to have paid for the right cover. And while there will always be rationing of some sort because resources aren't infinite, it's better to have a relatively transparent form of rationing than one that's dictated by the means of the patient.

I've seen good and bad in the NHS too, but mostly good. Equality can be bureaucratic and obtuse at times. But think where we'd be without it.

[Gill Coupland]

You're right Rob, I have listened to David Cameron today exclaiming that the conservative MEP Hannan's view is 'eccentric' - ECCENTRIC? Could he find a weaker euphamism - far better in my view to say what you really think - and when it comes to the NHS, yes, it's a national institution but that doesn't mean it's perfect, far from it. Someone please have the guts to say this is what it is, good and bad, it could be loads better, lets try and make it better.

[Rob Greenland]

Julian, Gill, thanks for your comments. Julian, you're right, if I'd managed to express my thoughts in 140 characters or less, then yes, I'd have a more valid point. And I definitely agree that the system we've got is better than the others that we could have had.

As Gill says, let's be honest about how things are. We can't rely on politicians to be honest about the NHS - they're always scoring points on it. So it's down to us to be honest. And as you say Gill, by acknowledging that it's not perfect, you can then work on making it better. (I also accept that I need to focus on the good more - I have a tendency to pick up and amplify the bad.)

I've written a letter to New Start this month about the slightly ridiculous generalisations that umbrella bodies offer with regards to the third sector - how it's the sector that always puts people first, how it's the future of public service delivery etc etc. Daft generalisations - or denial of reality - get in the way of what we all surely want - for things to get better - in the third sector, in the NHS, wherever.

[Liam Black]

Saw a great diagram recently on the excellent cynical www.despair.com. Three interconnecting circles. One labelled Stalker. One Attention Deficit Disorder. The third Narcissist. In the spaces where the circles over lap were the words Facebook Bebo etc and right in the middle where the three overlap was Twitter. Still not getting the value of Twitter - except that at the moment the media will cover any half arsed campaign which uses it. Hard not to sound like a grumpy old technophobe at this point. One thing that does increasingly get on my man bobs are the numbers of people fiddling around with online this and that, social networking away, who call themselves social entrepreneurs. In my day Mr Greenland if you were involved in se you actually made something happen in the world which had a real impact - a job, a home, etc - for someone who without those efforts wouldn't have it. Harrumph!

Re NHS. Like all large organisations the quality is woefully variable. the treatment one of my brood has had this year in Hgh Wycombe involving multiple trips has been fantastic. From booking appointments, changing them, getting scanned, seeing consultants etc it has been exemplary. If those resisting Obama had been with me, even the most rabid of them with shares in the private medical industry would be forced to say that this Limey system works. But if he'd spoken to my neighbour who was reduced to impotent rage by the neglect and indifference shown to her father in Winchester he's have all the data he needed to put Barack back in his box.

[Rob Greenland]

Some fair points Liam. There's a definite issue that people can get carried away with the technology, rather than the application of the technology. I know there are people within the social innovation/technology worlds who are aware of this issue and trying to deal with it.

But I'd also stand up for this stuff too - and encourage you out of your old dufferdom! You've managed to get the hang of comments on blogs, so who knows where you might go next? I've only just got into twitter. I doubt I'll get that into it, but it has been useful to get up to date news, links, etc - particularly from the green/social entrepreneur communities elsewhere in the world which are years ahead of us in the UK.

It's great to hear of your good experience of the NHS. A family member has recently had cancer and the treatment has similarly been first class.

[Andrew Spooner]

I was quite an active participant in welovetheNHS and have been involved in social media activism in other situations.

What I would say is that the debate had already been framed by extremists - namely Fox News and the I am the Mob nutters. Their ridiculous pronouncements that the UK was socialist, Stalinist and that the NHS is a recruiting ground for terrorist were so off the hook that they demanded, at least in the vanguard, an equal response. It ain't pretty but it has its uses...

Such an equal response by those who supported the NHS also drew the right into an argument and exposed their anti-NHS platform. Several Tory activists, councillors etc were drawn out and began tweeting anti-NHS guff.

Now, having had experience with twitter activism before there is no way you can have a thought out and reasoned debate in 140 characters - that has to come later and can be provided by blogs, journalists etc.

I also think it's very easy to dismiss social media as just geekdom gone ballistic - I guess people were making similar utterances about telephones and printing presses in years gone by. But it's here, it's new and we are all still figuring out its relevance and potential - if it has any of either.

[Edward]

I have to agree with Liam in not getting what the Twitter thing is :-(

Are not Twitter et al actually drivers towards polarity and superficiality and then banality?

I have noticed increasing evidence, all anecdotal so far, dismantling much of the early claimed-for benefits for debate and discussion that were to have come out of the Internet and especially Web2.

Posters, twitters et al seem to coalesce around their own ever-more closely prescribed forums, blogs and threads. The rapidly opening opportunities are maybe around providing facilities for meaningful, informed but inclusive online discourse… maybe presenting in turn significant issues on who is ‘allowed’ (or made!) to take part and how the whole business is monitored/facilitated?

Incidentally Rob, you are a tad good at that facilitating kind of thing on here :-)

[Rob Greenland]

Edward, Andrew, thanks for your comments. Andrew, you're right, whatever people think about Twitter campaigns, Facebook campaigns etc - they're here and they engage a good number of people, so we can't ignore them.

Edward - thanks for what you said about the blog. You're right - I do try hard to make this a place where some good debate can take place, rather than just a soapbox for me. And that takes effort and time - which I'm happy to give because I get a lot out of it.

I suppose the blogosphere and wider Web 2.0 world is much like the rest of life - some is crap, much is mediocre, and some is great. Just like some newspapers are rubbish but others are great. I suppose I like the fact that it's easy to get into this kind of thing. Ten years ago what else would I have done with my opinions? (yes, I may have met people face to face). I think it's really positive that more voices can now be heard more easily. With time, you work out which voices are worth listening to and engaging with.