Are NHS hospital's more concerned with organizational reputation than patients?

 

There is a pattern to the way in which allegations made against staff are treated within NHS hospitals.

In 2017, the breast surgeon, Ian Paterson, was given a 20-year prison sentence after being convicted of 17 counts of wounding with intent and 3 counts of unlawful wounding, after carrying out unnecessary and botched surgery on women patients. Sir Ian Kennedy, who conducted the Kennedy Breast Care Review, said in his report that NHS management within the hospitals where Paterson worked, were inward looking, over-defensive, and prone to destroy by a variety of means, those who suggest the emperor has no clothes. Professor Kennedy wrote:

"In reading this Review, you will see and recognise themes which have figured in a number of reports on the NHS over the years. Indeed, it has been said more than once, that, as regards reviews of the NHS, the place may be different, the date may be different, the details may be different, but the underlying issues are only too familiar. They include challenges in managing difficult and powerful members of staff - difficulties in raising concerns, inter-professional animosities, dysfunctional organisation, failures of communication, lack of openness, a particular style of leadership, lack of engagement by the Board in the quality and safety of care."

We might also add a tendency to hush things up and to throw things into the long grass. Medical staff who do raise concerns within a hospital, often complain of being ignored, bullied, or threatened. This happened at Solihull Hospital where Ian Patterson worked, and the Countess of Chester Hospital, where Lucy Letby worked. This also happened at Mid Staffs, Tameside, and Bristol hospitals, when staff raised concerns about patient safety.

When seven consultant pediatricians asked for an urgent meeting with management to discuss their concerns about Letby, it took the hospital three months to respond. The consultants were threatened with consequences after asking for the police to be called in.

Cases like Lucy Letby, are fortunately rare, but they're not unheard of. The nurse, Beverly Allitt, was convicted of killing four infants in 1993. Serial killer physicians, like Harold Shipman, are not unheard of either.