Change

After being told for some time that the long planned changes to the structure of the service, merging 5 Rehab Teams and 5 Locality Teams into 3 'super teams' complete with Community Matrons, would not affect the team we have now been told that the future is more uncertain. In an emergency team meeting we were told we will no longer be dealing with referrals from professionals, these will be made direct to the super teams, leaving us to deal with referrals made by the general public. There has been much discussion in the team since the plans were first announced and it was generally agreed amongst us that, despite the assertions of senior management, like a small boat, we would be inevitably tossed about by the waves generated by the supertanker maneuvering around us.

The plans will be 'going live' in mid-september. Office moves have been scheduled to take place and as everyone settles into new routines of hot-desking and parking problems half of my team will be sent out to help the new teams with processing the new referrals now be dealing with. The future of my team will we are told depend on the statistics generated in this first week.

Throughout the meeting I had a smile on my face. I was recalling when I first started at Social Services. Someone had blu-tacked some cartoons to the office wall, one was the excellent Clare In the Community another had a manager standing in front of an organisational diagram. The diagram had been amended several times, boxes crossed out and new names of teams pencilled in, things like Children's Team 1 was crossed out and Area C written in it's place. The caption of the cartoon was "We've tried re-organising several times so we just thought we'd mess everything up and see what happens" I couldn't help but think of it.