Dr Gordon Caldwell on Medical Bureaucracy

The Human Risk Podcast

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 it
• The reasons why there is so much bureaucracy within the NHS
• The impact this has on patient care
• What Gordon sees as ways to improve it

The 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