Dr Gordon Caldwell on Medical Bureaucracy

On this special episode of the show, I’m interviewing a doctor whose photograph went viral. In 2019, Doctor Gordon Caldwell, a retired Consultant Physician and Clinical Lead with the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) had a photograph taken of himself lying next to a long line of forms. The photograph’s purpose was to highlight the amount of paperwork medical professionals need to fill in. Gordon is a tireless campaigner against bureaucracy, and he wanted to make the point that time spent filling in forms is time not spent looking after patients. I saw the photograph and posted it on LinkedIn with some comments (link below). The level of responses I received made me realise he’d struck a chord. So I invited him onto the show! Fortunately, Gordon agreed, and during our discussion we explored: The genesis of the photograph and why Gordon felt motivated to take itThe reasons why there is so much bureaucracy within the NHSThe impact this has on patient careWhat Gordon sees as ways to improve itThe original article I saw about Gordon’s campaign in The Telegraph: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/01/21/pictured-doctor-shows-army-pointless-forms-burying-nhs-hospitals/A subsequent piece he wrote for The Spectator: https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-nhs-is-drowning-in-paperwork/To pre-order my new book ‘Humanising Rules: Bringing Behavioural Science to Ethics & Compliance’ visit https://www.human-risk.com/humanizing-rules-book