We’re very aware, through various avenues, that Katrina Percy would like to meet with us. The subtext is that ‘this is a good thing’. It’s important for her to hear, first hand, our ‘story’. It’s clearly a ‘good thing’ for various bodies that we ‘move on’. (I’m trying to forget this statement from a Sloven employee on local television news because it makes my head howl, but there was also the email from a commissioner stating that they didn’t want to publicly finger Sloven for the blame.)
I think our ‘story’ is captured on these pages. If you don’t want to read back, try to imagine having your heart wrenched out, scorched to a crisp and crushed into dust in front of you…
Got that?
It don’t come within a sniff.
Our beautiful and remarkable dude was completely defenceless. Sloven, the local authority and the Clinical Commissioning Group had a duty of care to keep him safe. All three bodies really (effectively) took this duty, chucked it in the nearest skip and then, when the most devastating thing imaginable happened, tried to cover their own, or each others, backs.
If LB hadn’t died, the same beyond shite provision would be in place. No one (other than the constantly and effectively sidelined, excluded and silenced families) would be any the wiser.
Our son died.
Every single day I go to bed thinking about this. Every single day I wake to the pain of remembering it. A constant pain that varies from sheer agony to a dull ache of intense sadness (on a ‘good’ day).
Meeting the CEO of the most immediate piece of the jigsaw of shiteness isn’t high on our list of things to do. It doesn’t feature at all to be honest. And we wouldn’t be thinking about it (well Rich ain’t) other than this ‘should’ biz. Not least because the potential cost to us of having to listen to some fake, PR informed, pre-rehearsed bullshite is too awful to imagine. (Phil Gayle’s legendary interview with the CEO on local BBC radio is probably no longer available but a razor sharp summary is available here).
In the spirit of lack lustre engagement I tweeted earlier inviting thoughts about this.
The responses were a mixed bag of thoughtful and considered responses (click on ‘load more’ for further responses)
Tweets by @georgejulianThank you. We remain unconvinced. But remain open to a good ‘should’…
[An afterthought. I cried while writing this post. I don’t always].
mydaftlife 
Sad beyond words.
Not sure where they were coming from even thinking that you would want to meet.
Which planet are they on?
They just don’t get it do they?
A genuine interest in meeting you would have manifested long long ago.
Maybe set up the meeting – and send a representative with a copy of your blog entry.
Love Jenny xx
I’ll tell you what planet they are on. They are running scared.
You should be very encouraged.
Please remember they can access your blog and twittering too
Hard to see where a ‘good should’ could come from. Sloven have done less than zero for you; they have managed to make an inconceivably awful situation actually, unbelievably, worse, at every turn. Quite some achievement, deserving of some sort of anti-award.
If meeting Katrina Percy isn’t going to help you (and why would it, now? Six, eight months ago, maybe yes, but NOW? That strikes me as one sick joke) then it isn’t even worth considering, much less guilt-tripping over, even for an instant. No ‘should’ about it.
You owe her, and Sloven, NOTHING.
Neither do you owe it to any of the rest of us to do even the smallest thing to improve matters for the future. We are admiring of what you have done for LB and grateful to be able to offer what support we can. If you want to be part of future change, your support will be invaluable and we will be forever indebted to you. However, as soon as and whenever you’ve had enough of the whole shebang, that fight, rightly, devolves to those of us fortunate enough still to have reason to fear the future.
I do think that when you get #justicefor LB it will help the rest of us, but that will be only a by-product of the main aim of getting it acknowledged (and, by God, proclaimed from every rooftop) that LB was a valuable, beloved, young man and that, but for the gross organisational failings of Sloven, he would still be here to enjoy another spring, delight his friends and family in happy obscurity, and continue enriching the lives of his wider circle with his quirky contributions.
That he isn’t, makes me more sorry than I can say.
Kay that is true, and spot on, xx
Actually thinking about it, in an opposite way, if you could, what a fucking great opportunity to ‘sock it to em ‘ give it large and some, and go with support.
…sort-of yes, except that
(a) Sara has already socked it to ’em, but good, in this blog and her contributions to the Verita report. There’s no reason in creation for Sara to put herself out further unless it suits her. And just now it doesn’t. Can’t see why Sloven shouldn’t swallow what they’ve already been given in silence, and be grateful for the unreciprocated courtesies already extended to them.
And
(b) Sloven have shown by their actions that they are simply an irrelevance. They seemed incapable of appreciating even the sketchiest idea of the scale of their failure, and they certainly haven’t shown any signs of making proper amends in terms of detailed, specific actions – it’s all been PR spin, waffle about ‘pathways’ and similar obfuscatory codswallop.
They couldn’t be bothered to care about LB and his family when their situation looked like a minor inconvenience for Sloven. Now that Sara and #justicefor LB have crowbarred events, and Sloven’s attitude, open to the searchlight of public and official scrutiny, suddenly Sloven want to be seen to be doing ‘the right thing’?
They weren’t up to it then. No conceivable reason to think they’ll be up to it now.
So – too late maties, the reparations ship has long since sailed and, while you Slovenly ones were bobbing around aimlessly in your puddle of arrogant complacency, has made harbour alongside policy-makers at the top of the NHS and in people in Government. People who really could make a difference, and not just in one Trust, however oversized.
If Sloven have anything useful – or even, Heaven forfend, humble or contrite! – to say, they’ll still get their chance.
In public. On the record. At the inquest.
Definition of ‘should’ from Oxford Online dictionary:
Used to indicate obligation, duty, or correctness, typically when criticizing someone’s actions:
Examples given :
he should have been careful
I think we should trust our people more
you shouldn’t have gone
Rewritten to apply to Sloven:
They should have been more careful
I think they should care for their patients better
They shouldn’t have left LB to bathe unsupervised.
All the ‘shoulds’ apply to them Sara, not to you.
xxxxxxx
There is no good should. None. Maybe she has a conscience she wants to salve, seems unlikely, but even if it is the case, so what? It’s not your place to give that gift. They have a bloody cheek asking. They are probably desperately trying to think of ways to ‘firefight’ before the inquest. Heartless bastards, the lot of them.
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