Mr H & facts 1, 2, 3(a), (b), (c), (d), (e), 4(a), (b), and (c) etc

Poor Mr H. I hope he has a sense of humour. A dyslexic man, qualified by some regulated and audited educational body to work as a physiotherapist, faced with a panel of people who prove facts 1, 2, 3, etc and write that "the HPC Standards of proficiency were breached, viz: Standards 1a 4, 1a 5, 1b, 1 1b4, 1b5, 2a.1, 2a.2, 2a.3, 2a.4, 2b.1, 2b.2, 2b.3, 2b.4, 2b.5, 2c.1, and 2c.2."

Sitting in the crammed up seats in a cold draft near the door, (which might well appear - misleadingly - in the minutes of this meeting as the 'public gallery') I would say that there are good grounds to suppose that the educational body that granted Mr H the qualification might be unfit for practice. Furthermore, I think that the NHS Trust who employed Mr H also has a little case to answer. The permanent shortage of staff, which is well known to be worse over the Christmas and New Year period, is the context in which Mr H was first offered the job which he had refused. He recognised that he would be in difficulties in such a particular context as this (it was a 'respiratory' rotation, and Mr H knew he had no expertise in this). The job was offered to him again later as no-one else had been found for it, and this time he accepted it. Perhaps he thought he was helping out, and that this spirit of charity on his part would be met with by staff around him.

In fact one of the witnesses, the Band 6, said she had a good working relationship with Mr H, and had been happy to spend time teaching him on the job. So what changed her mind?

The Band 7, another young woman, and responsible for quite a lot (it seemed to me) in this NHS Trust, spoke in a way that did not inspire much confidence. She seemed to reproach Mr H, and to resent his presence - I don't think she can have been part of the process to recruit him to her team. He seemed to represent a threat to her reputation, and to require more from her than she was able to give.

Now, this could mean that she was not fit for purpose, not capable of dealing with the perennial staff shortages, not capable of coping with the level of qualifications produced by contemporary educational bodies, not capable of accommodating the differences amongst the people she is required to work with. Not capable of holding her ground in the face of potential allegations of failure that might be aimed at her.

Or is there another way of thinking about this? As it happens, I studied business 30 years ago. This was when the function 'Personnel' still enjoyed a position. At that time there was much excitement at the new phrase 'Human Resources Management' and the academics in the business schools at the time wondered what effect such a shift in terms signified. Tony Watson (now Prof at Nottingham Trent University) taught me that 'personnel' derived from the French duality born of war-fare: personnel/material. It indicated a human being as opposed to an object. The term Human Resource, however, rather put the person on the same side as an object. Essays and exams were written by hundreds at the time on the question of possible future consequences.

That was a very different context. It was not so unusual to consider it rather dishonest to scape-goat an individual for the failings of the group.

Now it seems that we, the British, think it a virtue to single someone out for a public show trial.

No patient was harmed as a consequence of Mr H's employment.

So what is going on in our name, and from what are we being protected?

Is it not knowledge, or better yet, truth that we are being shielded from? The truth not only of the complexity of reality constructed by us and by government policies over the last 30 years, but also of the truth of human subjectivity and the impossibility to actually turn us all into a fantastically efficient machine.