The front pages quite rightly today detail the desperate case of Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust. The Guardian lists some of the failings.
I doubt there is a clinician alive in the NHS today who has not seen how targets have distorted clinical priorities. Are we shocked by this story? No. Because we have seen these distortions for years and have we complained? Yes. And what has been the outcome? Put-downs by managers who have been put in the invidious position of enforce or be punished by this Labour Government. Clinical need and quality of care have been trumped by clockwatching and fear.
Reviews have been launched into quality of care and A&E but there are fundamental procedural questions to be answered.
- Why on earth didn't Monitor, the independent regulator of foundation trusts know that the HealthCare Commission had serious concerns about the Trust?
- Why is there no red alert system when there is a rising number of deaths?
- And why are the Trust's minutes so inadequate?
I might have an answer to the last one - because the Trust I used to work in had a chairman who edited the minutes for anything she didn't want to be recorded including for meetings where she wasn't present.
If this can happen, then records of complaints from staff, clinicians and family can all be altered / changed / lost too can't they? Most people whether managers or clinicians or ancillary staff go into the NHS to care and to serve. What has happened to us when external pressures drive out this noble aim and integrity is thrown out with the hospital waste?
