04 | February | 2014

So the Trust are sticking to ‘the report will not see the light of day’ hardline. Goose-stepping across transparency and duty of candour. Someone commented last week that ‘sunshine is the best disinfectant’ but the shutters are clearly drawn tight at Southern Health Towers.

They aren’t covering up, apparently, and accept “duties to be honest, open and candid but…” An old mate of mine said years ago that a ‘but’ in the middle of a sentence means ‘what I’ve just told you is a pack of lies and here comes the truth…’ I don’t know if there’s any evidence to support this but the Trust has to balance transparency with duties of confidentiality to patients and staff. Basically, a cover up then.

A brief rattle through the latest ‘keep the report secret’ reasons…

We [the family] only have a draft copy and “it would be entirely inappropriate for a draft that [staff] have not had chance to comment on to be released into the public domain.” (Southern Health’s main preoccupation, after their reputation, is staff. Providing good care? Feelings of bereaved families? Forget it.)

The duty of confidentiality to “CS” stick is waved again. The way in which the Trust is suddenly championing his rights is sickening. After abusing them in so many ways when he was alive.

Then there’s the Data Protection Act 1998. Such a small unit so very difficult to stop the identification of staff. The report isn’t actually about who was where, doing what when LB died. It’s about how someone could die in such a setting with pretty much one to one care. It shouldn’t be kept out of the public domain because it happened to be a small unit. It should never have happened in such a small setting.

Again there’s the nonsensical statement that staff took part in the investigation on the basis that it was for the purposes of learning within the Trust. Please ditch this Enid Blyton depiction of staff/employer relationships which is vomit inducing.

If staff were as compliant as you suggest, why the fuck weren’t they doing their job properly?
Staff don’t have ‘a choice’ about taking part in investigations when a patient dies unexpectedly.
There’s a demonstrable carelessness with ‘truth’ in the draft report.
Staff didn’t have a problem telling the CQC inspection team what they thought a few weeks earlier. With the knowledge that the CQC inspection would be made public.

Then there’s the ‘making the report public will prejudice future investigations’ line. Something so fucking flawed and nonsensical I can’t be bothered to unpack it again.

Reading these arguments is like fingernails screeching on a blackboard. Pathetic and contrived.

Drum roll for the big finale… over to ‘their client’s’ solicitor:

Finally, having carefully considered the criteria under Schedules 2 and 3 of the DPA [Data Protection Act], the Trust does not consider that the disclosure is necessary in order to achieve any of the listed purposes. Notwithstanding the above, the Trust is conscious of its duties to be open, frank and candid. It does recognise that there is some public interest in ensuring that serious incidents are investigated and that lessons are learnt.

To this end, the Trust proposes to prepare a summary of the investigation findings (once finalised) that will be published on its website. It is anticipated that this will be published alongside an explanation as to how any recommendations will be implemented. We hope that this suggestion will satisfy the family’s concerns.

Fucking hilarious. A Southern Health Summary. Here, I’ll save you a job;