Health Campaigner - Paul Broadhurst
A local health campaigner who is also
member of the Tameside Hospital Foundation Trust, has been told by solicitors
acting on behalf of Tameside Hospital that he has been banned from the premises
of Tameside and Glossop Integrated Care NHS Foundation Trust.
In a solicitor’s letter that he received
on 9 September, from Weightmans of Liverpool, Paul Broadhurst, from Dukinfield,
was told that the hospital was intending to exclude him from the Trust’s
premises and that he could now only attend the hospital, when seeking emergency
or planned medical treatment. Although Mr Broadhurst, is a member of the
hospital trust, the letter warned him:
“If
you attend for any other purpose then you would be trespassing and action could
be taken to remove you from the site and/or legal action could be brought
against you.”
Tameside Hospital claim that they have
banned Broadhurst from their premises, because he has campaigned to “harass and discredit the Trust’s employees
and officers.” They also allege that he has emailed Trust Governors and
Non-Executive Directors criticising the Chair and stating that he should
resign. Moreover, that on occasions, he has been seen at the hospital with a
placard around his neck and engages in conversations, with people at the
hospital. They also claim that he has no legitimate reason to conduct his
campaign and recently infiltrated and disrupted a staff focus group meeting,
with the Care Quality Commission (CQC). The hospital also insists that Mr
Broadhurst has failed to use the ‘proper channels’, but don’t explain what
these are.
Without doubt, Paul Broadhurst, is an
irritant and a thorn in the side of the management at Tameside Hospital. But we
do live in a free country and not Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia, as Tameside
Hospital, and their solicitors seem to think. What some people may see as quite
unreasonable behaviour, is seen by others, as perfectly legitimate activity
that is in the public interest. Many people applaud Paul Broadhurst, for his
efforts to improve patient care at Tameside Hospital.
When the current CEO, Karen James, took over
as interim CEO in the summer of 2013, following the resignation of the then
CEO, Christine Green, when the hospital was put into ‘special measures’
following the Keogh review, she promised a new era of openness and
transparency. Today, walking around Tameside Hospital, you will see notices
displayed, “if in doubt speak out!” The
reason for this, is because the hospital has form and a history, for harassing
and bullying staff who speak out. You might say that a lack of candour was a
major reason why the hospital was put into special measures. Hospital staff
knew that to raise concerns, led to reprisals being taken against them by
hospital management. In its Annual Report 2014/15 (Our staff), some 21% of
staff working at Tameside Hospital claimed to have experienced harassment,
bullying or abuse, in the last twelve months.
Milton Peña, who worked at Tameside Hospital for seventeen years, as a
consultant orthopaedic surgeon, has described in detail in his recently published
memoirs, the threats and intimidation that was meted out to him by Tameside
Hospital management in their quest to stop him speaking out about the lack of
patient safety at the hospital.
For Paul Broadhurst, this ban by Tameside
Hospital management, is just history repeating itself and a pathetic attempt to
stop him speaking out. Five years ago (2011), he was banned from the hospital
premises for similar reasons when he received a solicitors letter from
Hempson’s in Manchester. When he went to the hospital in 2011, for medical help
with a serious heart condition, he was treated like the American gangster, John
Dillinger (public enemy number one), and escorted around the hospital by burly
security staff as he attended his hospital appointments. He regards many of the
allegations made by the hospital as malicious, fabricated and potentially
defamatory. While he doesn’t deny calling on the Chair of Tameside Hospital,
Paul Connellan, to resign, he says that his “days of action” have always taken place off hospital property and
he denies, disrupting any meetings of the Board or Governors, which are held at
the hospital and which the public can attend as observers only, and are not
allowed to speak. The allegation that he infiltrated and disrupted a meeting
with hospital staff and the CQC on 10 August, he regards as ludicrously absurd,
pointing out that he’d arranged to meet the manager of the CQC at the hospital,
and when asked to wait outside the meeting, had complied immediately.
Although the hospital has been made aware
of these facts, they have refused to lift the ban on Paul Broadhurst. Despite
asking the solicitor for hard evidence to substantiate the allegations made
against him by the hospital, this as not been forthcoming. When he sought to
attend the hospital AGM on 27 September 2016, as a member of the public, Mr
Broadhurst was denied access by security staff. Just over a week later, on 4
October, when he attended the hospital to accompany his seriously ill wife,
Mary, he was thrown off the premises by security staff who falsely claimed that
they had an ‘Anti-Social Behaviour Order’ (ASBO) against him. Karen James later
apologised for the way he had been treated but refused to lift the ban. Despite
the appalling and inhuman behaviour that Mr Broadhurst was subjected to, Ms
James, was recently short-listed for the prestigious
‘Chief-Executive-of-the-Year’ health service journal award.
As a member of the Tameside hospital
trust, Mr Broadhurst believes the hospital have no legal right to ban him from
the premises. He believes that the hospital is harassing him and that their
allegations are malicious, false and defamatory. He is also adamant that the hospital has
breached his human rights in denying him access to public meetings. The
hospital ban has received quite a lot of media publicity with Tameside Hospital
management, being held up to ridicule for their actions in trying to silence
him, which seems to have had the opposite effect. A group to support Mr Broadhurst has been set
up and is demanding that the hospital apologises to Mr Broadhurst and lifts the
ban. Perhaps a more appropriate notice
for display throughout the hospital run by Karen James, would be: “If in doubt, Watch out!”
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