Retiring York NHS boss Mike Proctor urges Health Secretary to tackle social care crisis

Mr Proctor, who is retiring next week after an NHS career spanning 44 years, had a surprising message for the Health and Social Care Secretary in Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s new cabinet: “My message to Matt Hancock is to focus on social care.

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“That might seem to be really strange for somebody in health to say that, but that will help alleviate the burdens that are happening in health.”

He told the Yorkshire Post: “We see, every day, the numbers of people that turn up to our accident and emergency department that are neither an accident or an emergency but are coming because they can't get services outside hospital.”

The period between April 2018 and March 2019 was the worst year on record for accident and emergency waiting times across the UK, with Scarborough Hospital -- part of York Teaching Hospital Foundation Trust -- particularly struggling. In the spring, more than a quarter of people who visited Scarborough Hospital’s accident and emergency were waiting more than four hours to be seen.

Because of a dire shortage of home care workers, patients who are not seriously ill are forced to use hospitals for basic care.

One of the problems, Mr Proctor said, was that health and social care policy was devised in London by people who have not considered the challenges in the north, particularly in rural areas.

“In a diversely sparse population, like the areas that we serve, it's not economically viable to have one person doing domiciliary care across a massive area because they can only do a very few visits a day.”

Care workers tend not to be paid for travelling time between appointment which means it can be hard to recruit staff in the countryside.

“It's not the same as an inner city where you can do eight or 10 visits a day but they still get the same rate. It just doesn't work, does it?”

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Key to solving this is giving power to local areas to make their own decisions on social care.

“This might mean different types of care being delivered in different parts of the country. People would label that a postcode lottery but it isn't a postcode lottery, it's local people deciding how they're going to spend that money.

“The priorities in York and Scarborough are different from the priorities in Kensington.

“We'll often set priorities that make sense within the M25 that don't make sense to us.”

Having started as an operating theatre assistant in Sheffield in 1975, Mr Proctor worked his way up through the NHS to become head of a trust employing 9,000 people.

In the 1980s, unusually for a man at the time, Mr Proctor trained as a nurse.

“Amongst my friends, I was afraid to admit I was doing nursing,” he recalled, adding he was one of three men in a class of about 40 student nurses.

“We were very few and far between and treated with suspicion,” he laughed. However, attitudes have changed significantly since then.

“Those days have gone thankfully. I think men are now accepted as also having a caring side as well.”

Going on to teach nursing, Mr Proctor instilled a deep respect for patients and the NHS into everyone he taught. “One thing I always say is 'treat it as a privilege'. Because actually, we get the honour of touching people's lives in a way that not many people in other jobs do.

“What people evaluate about their care is whether we're kind to them or not.”

This attitude during his career was partly formed during a terrifying ordeal as a teenager.

“When I was a 14 year old boy, I'd had major abdominal surgery and I was really scared. It was an emergency operation, and it was pretty brutal stuff”

A nurse held his hand, bringing him immediate comfort. “I still remember it, it was 50 years ago. That nurse will never know what impact that had on me at the time, she'll never know that.”

Mr Proctor credited this background in nursing for his career success, adding every decision he made as chief executive had the staff and patients in mind.

He said he trusted staff to know what would improve services and, where possible, always tried to deliver what they wanted.

“Scarborough will be self sufficient for nurses and not have to import people from outside and therefore be sustainable in about two years time.

“That's going to be absolutely fabulous, because we never had enough nurses that have gone through York University that wanted to work in Scarborough so we're recruiting locally to Scarborough. It's a fantastic opportunity for young people and actually middle-aged people to become a nurse and stay in Scarborough and work in Scarborough for the rest of their lives and I'm really proud of that.

“We've worked hard to develop that, and the benefits won't be seen for a few years but they're coming, I promise you.”

Colleagues described Mr Proctor as a “hands on” chief executive who “will be missed”.

Deputy chief executive and finance director, Andrew Bertram, who has worked with Mr Proctor for more than 20 years said: “Mike has never been afraid to make key decisions and he has played an instrumental role in many of the Trust’s developments, changes and improvements over the years. His selfless approach to his work, his dedication to patient care over the past 40 years and his commitment and loyalty to our Trust has been nothing short of outstanding.”

Mr Proctor added: “I can't say I've enjoyed every day of my career, but I've probably enjoyed 90% of it. That makes me spring out of bed in the morning because I really enjoy what I do. And I'm going to miss enormously doing those things.”