Doing as well as thinking
http://www.100md.com
《英国医生杂志》
London
Does a broadcaster have the gravitas to run a health policy organisation? Niall Dickson, the new head of the King's Fund, tells Geoff Watts why he's the man for the job
Sitting in his office reflecting on the condition of the King's Fund, Niall Dickson, the fund's new chief executive, recalls a conversation he's had earlier in the morning. The woman he'd spoken to is the director of a trust. "She said that her life had been transformed, her career transformed, by a King's Fund course... Well, we produce 1500 alumni every year. These are our ambassadors."
Niall Dickson, lately of the BBC's social affairs department, took over at the fund in early January. As he is aware, the fund needs that reservoir of goodwill—and he may have to draw more heavily on that than some of his predecessors. The organisation may still be the brightest star in the health policy firmament, but it will have to burn more brightly to continue out-shining the competition in quantity and quality.
"Some individuals within the fund remain influential because they do good work," says Klim McPherson, professor of public health epidemiology at the University of Bristol, "but I'm not sure it has much to do with the fund itself." Professor Nick Bosanquet of London's Imperial College thinks the King's Fund has made some of its best contributions when tackling smaller, more specific problems. "There has been a tendency to concentrate on the high profile issues, the ones that count in the polls and the papers." Both Bosanquet and McPherson point to the retrenchment forced on its previous director, Julia Neuberger, by the fall in the stock market.
Dickson himself is reluctant to make comparisons with the past. "I think there is a danger of looking back to halcyon days," he responds. The fund may indeed have been more influential, but was also characterised by managers talking to each other rather than to the wider community. The restructuring that began under the fund's last but one director, Robert Maxwell, opened it to a broader spectrum of opinion.
Either way, besides the obvious need to produce high quality work, Dickson has other ideas for boosting its influence. "What I hope will make us distinctive in research is not to stop at the point where we publish a report. Increasingly I hope we'll see that as the first phase. For example, in our report on chronic disease management )] we've looked at some of the models used by managed care organisations in the United States for their applicability here. This is just the starting point. We're now going to work with primary care trusts in London, our "laboratory," and we'll offer them support in testing these models. We're an organisation that thinks, but also does.
"If I have a vision, I would like us to develop original work with real insight, to try it out in practice, and then encourage others to see if it can be replicated throughout the country."
The notion of appointing someone from outside the health policy community to head the fund has been tried before. Julia Neuberger represented a conscious attempt to raise its profile: a move that carried all the attendant dangers of employing people because of who they are as well as what they are. So should the appointment of a wellknown journalist call for nods of approval or raised eyebrows?
Klim McPherson admits to being surprised by the appointment. "Given the broad social affairs territory he's been covering, one wonders if he has enough grasp of health in particular." George Alberti, former president of the Royal College of Physicians, has similar reservations. "As a journalist you tend to be covering a lot of different things superficially. What we expect of the King's Fund is a small number of topics covered in great depth. But maybe what's needed is someone to proselytise and promote the thinkers within the organisation." Both are sympathetic but withholding judgment.
MICK BROWNFIELD
Dickson is now 50. His first degree was in politics and modern history at Edinburgh, and, while conceding his lack of experience as an academic, he denies that it's a disadvantage. "I've spent most of my career looking at research papers, looking at the academic world from the outside and I'm perfectly able to engage with academics about their work." He recalls a previous job that was initially controversial. "There was considerable opposition to my appointment at Nursing Times on the grounds that I had no nursing background." If circulation is anything to go by—it doubled on his watch—that deficiency seems not to have handicapped him.
What does Dickson himself think he brings to the job? "An understanding of the healthcare world and of the topography of the NHS and of social care." As he points out, the two are increasingly seen as inseparable. What else? "An ability to understand policy and to engage with policy makers. Hopefully an ability to communicate and a track record in running small organisations." Before heading the BBC's Social Affairs Unit, and while editing Nursing Times, he was briefly on the board of the publisher Macmillan. "So being in charge of an organisation, responsible for staff, having a budget, and setting out a strategy don't feel completely alien."
Will he miss the rough and tumble of journalism, and the air time? For some broadcasters, he acknowledges, being on air is like a drug. But he says he never suffered during holidays and won't miss it now. "As for the rough and tumble, you often find yourself with a set of plans for the day that get thrown out of the window. That's fun when you start, but after 15 years it can become wearisome."
That is not to say there'll be no more rough and tumble. "Don't get the idea I came here for a quiet life," he says. "I wanted to get back into management in a more hands-on way. I wanted to get back into an organisation, and run it."(Geoff Watts)
Does a broadcaster have the gravitas to run a health policy organisation? Niall Dickson, the new head of the King's Fund, tells Geoff Watts why he's the man for the job
Sitting in his office reflecting on the condition of the King's Fund, Niall Dickson, the fund's new chief executive, recalls a conversation he's had earlier in the morning. The woman he'd spoken to is the director of a trust. "She said that her life had been transformed, her career transformed, by a King's Fund course... Well, we produce 1500 alumni every year. These are our ambassadors."
Niall Dickson, lately of the BBC's social affairs department, took over at the fund in early January. As he is aware, the fund needs that reservoir of goodwill—and he may have to draw more heavily on that than some of his predecessors. The organisation may still be the brightest star in the health policy firmament, but it will have to burn more brightly to continue out-shining the competition in quantity and quality.
"Some individuals within the fund remain influential because they do good work," says Klim McPherson, professor of public health epidemiology at the University of Bristol, "but I'm not sure it has much to do with the fund itself." Professor Nick Bosanquet of London's Imperial College thinks the King's Fund has made some of its best contributions when tackling smaller, more specific problems. "There has been a tendency to concentrate on the high profile issues, the ones that count in the polls and the papers." Both Bosanquet and McPherson point to the retrenchment forced on its previous director, Julia Neuberger, by the fall in the stock market.
Dickson himself is reluctant to make comparisons with the past. "I think there is a danger of looking back to halcyon days," he responds. The fund may indeed have been more influential, but was also characterised by managers talking to each other rather than to the wider community. The restructuring that began under the fund's last but one director, Robert Maxwell, opened it to a broader spectrum of opinion.
Either way, besides the obvious need to produce high quality work, Dickson has other ideas for boosting its influence. "What I hope will make us distinctive in research is not to stop at the point where we publish a report. Increasingly I hope we'll see that as the first phase. For example, in our report on chronic disease management )] we've looked at some of the models used by managed care organisations in the United States for their applicability here. This is just the starting point. We're now going to work with primary care trusts in London, our "laboratory," and we'll offer them support in testing these models. We're an organisation that thinks, but also does.
"If I have a vision, I would like us to develop original work with real insight, to try it out in practice, and then encourage others to see if it can be replicated throughout the country."
The notion of appointing someone from outside the health policy community to head the fund has been tried before. Julia Neuberger represented a conscious attempt to raise its profile: a move that carried all the attendant dangers of employing people because of who they are as well as what they are. So should the appointment of a wellknown journalist call for nods of approval or raised eyebrows?
Klim McPherson admits to being surprised by the appointment. "Given the broad social affairs territory he's been covering, one wonders if he has enough grasp of health in particular." George Alberti, former president of the Royal College of Physicians, has similar reservations. "As a journalist you tend to be covering a lot of different things superficially. What we expect of the King's Fund is a small number of topics covered in great depth. But maybe what's needed is someone to proselytise and promote the thinkers within the organisation." Both are sympathetic but withholding judgment.
MICK BROWNFIELD
Dickson is now 50. His first degree was in politics and modern history at Edinburgh, and, while conceding his lack of experience as an academic, he denies that it's a disadvantage. "I've spent most of my career looking at research papers, looking at the academic world from the outside and I'm perfectly able to engage with academics about their work." He recalls a previous job that was initially controversial. "There was considerable opposition to my appointment at Nursing Times on the grounds that I had no nursing background." If circulation is anything to go by—it doubled on his watch—that deficiency seems not to have handicapped him.
What does Dickson himself think he brings to the job? "An understanding of the healthcare world and of the topography of the NHS and of social care." As he points out, the two are increasingly seen as inseparable. What else? "An ability to understand policy and to engage with policy makers. Hopefully an ability to communicate and a track record in running small organisations." Before heading the BBC's Social Affairs Unit, and while editing Nursing Times, he was briefly on the board of the publisher Macmillan. "So being in charge of an organisation, responsible for staff, having a budget, and setting out a strategy don't feel completely alien."
Will he miss the rough and tumble of journalism, and the air time? For some broadcasters, he acknowledges, being on air is like a drug. But he says he never suffered during holidays and won't miss it now. "As for the rough and tumble, you often find yourself with a set of plans for the day that get thrown out of the window. That's fun when you start, but after 15 years it can become wearisome."
That is not to say there'll be no more rough and tumble. "Don't get the idea I came here for a quiet life," he says. "I wanted to get back into management in a more hands-on way. I wanted to get back into an organisation, and run it."(Geoff Watts)