The
Event
I then checked
London Heathrow Terminal 5 arrival board which said the flight was on time (in
contradiction to the Stockholm
departure board). I then checked BA's website which also showed that the flight
was on time.
Now my
hopes raised slightly. Suddenly Stockholm
departure board showed a new departure time reducing the delay and a little
later the board at Stockholm
stated that the flight will depart on time. We were allowed to board at the
originally scheduled departure time without any delays.
I
boarded the flight and then cancelled my changed arrangements in UK.
Once we
were settled in our seats and the doors were locked the captain made an
announcement.
The
captain said that there was some equipment which was faulty. Replacement equipment was
arriving soon by the next BA flight from London.
The new equipment will be fitted in by the engineer and only then we will leave.
There will be a delay expected to be around 50 minutes or so.
All
these happened and the aircraft finally took off at about 1945 hours.
Of
course the reasons were explained (apparently there was only one aerobridge for
that kind of aircraft), BA staff were polite and courteous.
The
Issues
However,
the above episode means
That BA
had information about the issue before asking customers to board the flight.
They
withheld information from their customers before the customers boarded the
flight.
The
announcement on the ‘departure’ board about the flight time was wrong,
deliberately wrong.
Customers
were invited to board the aircraft under what seems like a false premise of a
departure Customers had no say or choice in the situation, we were blissfully
unaware.
I wonder
if the event would have technically qualified to be counted as wrongful
restraint or false imprisonment in case someone wanted to leave the aircraft or
press charges.
That
statement could have shocked you. But, just think about it, change the scenario
away from an aircraft to another location. Just because it was air transport by
private companies we are attuned to accepting many things to the point that we
are no longer shocked by whatever they do. Never mind shocked, we are often not
even mildly annoyed at the concept of locking you in a plane when they know it
will not take off and fully accept their justification for doing so.
It also
meant that I had to make yet more changes to my arrangements in UK.
At this
point let me reiterate that it is not just BA, they happen to be the
illustration for this blog because I personally experienced this. Every airline
company does this, every airport does this, they are probably even allowed to
do all these. I have already stated that the pilot and cabin crew were polite,
it is not the staff behaviour that I am complaining about. It is about the
underlying core attitudes which airlines do and perhaps allowed to do.
What NOT
to learn
We in
healthcare are asked to learn from airlines, especially scheduled airlines. In
healthcare we are asked to co-create with patients. In health care we are
patient centric and are asked to be even more patient centric, quite rightly.
If a
doctor or nurse or other healthcare professional staff deliberately with held
information from or provided false
information to patients, for the doctor's convenience or her organisations
convenience that doctor, nurse or healthcare staff is at the risk of being
investigated and reprimanded.
For
pilots and airlines there seem to be no such issues.
Stop
asking health care to learn from pilots and airlines as though it was a one-way
street, especially about customer centeredness. In airlines it is often take it
or leave it presented in a way that misleads you to thinking you have real
choices.
In health
care patient (customer) autonomy is a core value. There are numerous other
fundamental values around honesty, choice, candour and others. These are at the
risk of being changed so that the presentation of these values to the patient
on how good these look, feel or sound rather than how good the values themselves
are. If healthcare was persistent on this learning from commerce, we could one
day convince the patients that the presentation was more important than the
value being presented. We in healthcare will be lesser that day.
It is
important to constantly look for what not to learn and make sure we do not
learn it.
©M
HEMADRI
Follow me on twitter @HemadriTweets
Note:
I have already blogged on learning (or not) from airlines, they can be found by clicking the following links:
Healthcare is not similar to aviation but lessons can be learned http://successinhealthcare.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/healthcare-not-similar-to-aviation-but.html
Scheduled airlines are safe, just like outpatient clinics
Blondes, pilots and doctors: Who should learn from whom?
No comments:
Post a Comment