Tuesday 22 August 2023
More bureaucracy - the latest placebo
Lucy Letby: NHS managers must be held to account, doctor says
Hospital managers should be regulated in a similar way to doctors and nurses, the senior doctor who first raised concerns about Lucy Letby has said.
Dr Stephen Brearey was the lead consultant on the neonatal unit where serial killer Letby worked and raised the alarm in October 2015.
He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme there was "no apparent accountability" for what NHS managers do in trusts.
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5 comments:
Yes, these people have lived and worked all their lives in bureaucracies, and can't imagine anything different. It's like fish saying that there always needs to be more water. Bureaucracies are essentially about following correct procedures. Do we really need a set of procedures for sacking useless, conniving, self-interested facilitators of mass murder? Just sack them, publicise their details, and subject them to the public pillory of documentaries. When it hurts enough, those still employed will get the message.
There are a plethora of questions surrounding the questionable proceedings bearing a remarkable similarity to the Sally Clark saga where the hard of thinking mob was used to vilify another witch:
"Why is it police have focused only on the 1/3rd of infants who died at CoCH during 2015/16 that they could, in some cases only quite tenuously, link to the sometimes inconsistently reported presence of Lucy Letby?
Where are the investigations of the other 2/3rds of neonates that died on the neonatal unit at CoCH and who doctors and police admit, did so in sometimes very similar circumstances and even in the months after Letby was removed from clinical practice?
Why was the hospital building so quickly scheduled for a complete refit and remodel, and then so rapidly moved along for complete destruction and replacement?
Why is it similar unexplained deaths continued in the months after Letby was removed from clinical practice and no longer had access to the unit?
Why is it these excess deaths only stopped after the aged consultant, Dr Gibbs, had retired and was replaced? What relationship does the fact that he was ‘one foot out the door’ for most of the period have to the entire collection of neonates who died in the unit?
Is it possible, as I have previously demonstrated, that there are other causes for these neonates deaths that remain hitherto unexplored?"
https://lawhealthandtech.substack.com/p/lucy-letby-found-guilty
We really don't want another layer of bureaucracy to regulate NHS managers. It would soon be captured by the medical machine and be ineffective but probably very expensive.
You really need just two things:
1) A completely separate register of whistle-blowers concerns, kept securely.
2) A willingness to prosecute ineffective managers who turn a blind eye as accessories to murder, conspiracy, or some such legal charge.
A few prosecutions would focus the attention. You could roll out the register to cover other public services too - although I rather expect there would be a lot of resistance to being held accountable.
"2) A willingness to prosecute ineffective managers who turn a blind eye as accessories to murder, conspiracy, or some such legal charge."
The laws on corporate manslaughter already exist. As far as I can see they apply as much to the NHS as private businesses. Yet the only bodies who have ever been prosecuted under it are private companies.
Equally the H&S at Work Act allows for directors and managers to be prosecuted where their 'consent or connivance' has resulted in deaths in the workplace.
I see no reason why both pieces of legislation could not be applied to the NHS today.
Sam - there seems to be a widespread underlying attitude that people in bureaucracies mean well. Within bureaucracies, responsibility seems to be undermined by a culture of evasion, yet still we end up with more and more bureaucracy.
Nessimmersion - thanks for the link, I've seen another online suggestion that the verdict was unsafe but haven't kept the link. I haven't followed the case closely enough to form an opinion except that questions about it seem unlikely to go away.
DJ - that's an interesting idea, because an official register of whistle-blower concerns should be fairly easy and inexpensive to set up. Patterns would presumably emerge to trigger investigation, although the investigations themselves could be a weak point.
Sobers - I agree, laws already exist. Presumably there is an undisclosed decision that the NHS must be immune to these laws or it will be unable to carry on in its present form.
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