A letter from Katrina Percy was included in the flimsy bundle of documentation we received in response to my Access to Records request. This letter passed me by at the time. A cracking version of a ‘bury bad news day’ offering really. It was sent by email the same day the Verita report was published. That awful day back in February when we, alongside a great many people on social media, waited for hours for the report into LB’s death to be eventually published online around 6pm.

Reading the letter now, a couple of months on… Well.. it’s such a distressing example of something I’ve almost no words for. To write such a letter at the same time as the publication of the report which clearly states that LB’s death was preventable, without reference to this report, underlines the complete disconnect between KP and her public handwringing, hounding of us to meet with her.

The letter is headed:

“Health Records of the late Connor Sparrowhawk”

Wow. Wow.

Wow.

Fuck me.

Howl. 

Howl…..

You really, really, REALLY, don’t need to refer to the ‘late Connor Sparrowhawk‘. He was our beloved son. A dude I gave birth to, cuddled, kissed, comforted, fed, bathed, cared for when he was ill, admired, encouraged, reassured (constantly), tried to help learn stuff, learned from, laughed with, advocated and fought for, hung out with and blinking loved more than life itself.

The late Connor Sparrowhawk. What stupid, careless, thoughtless and unnecessary phrasing. I spend pretty much every waking second, minute, hour thinking about and howling (inside or out) that our dude is dead. And thinking about how he died through the unspeakably poor and, in our opinion, criminally negligent actions of Sloven fucking shite health and associate organisations.

The content of the letter is about two further examples of appalling practice by the Sloves. First sending LB a letter after his death about the brilliant care he can expect from the Sloves and second, the failure of the Trust to send a full set of documents to Verita until two days before the final report into his death was due. Just read this paragraph again. And again. And again.

Examples of such shiteness which, together with the evidence from the Verita report and various CQC failed inspections, make me wonder why we’re still even discussing this bunch of complete muppets. As I’ve asked before, without answer, what needs to happen before someone wades in to say ‘Er, that’s probably enough now’… I can only think that the appalling examples of Sloven are replicated across other Trusts and everyone is hunkering down thinking that ‘Mmm, pretty much that’s what we do too…’

Katrina Percy litters the letter with her now customary crapshiteness. Words that ping off any available surface failing to hit a meaningful note. She’s been at the helm of a Trust that’s crushed our lives (and the lives of others) in a way that is sort of acknowledged by the CQC and Monitor, but she still buffs her awards and pops up on local news to spout bullshite.

Her words in this letter make my eyes feel sick; sorry, terrible mistake, I can only imagine the distress this must have caused you, terrible mistake, deeply regret, gravely sorry for the error, unacceptable, incredibly sorry, etc, etc etc. She spews out bullshite to order but fails to join the dots to think ‘Er, oopsy, the independent investigation into this young man’s death found his death was preventable. The report’s being published today (eventually) I should probably write (or sign) my letter with that in mind’.

Nah. There’s no real joining of dots with KP because basically she couldn’t give a shit. She has no answers to the real questions (as evidenced at her recent ‘appearance’ at the Oxfordshire Partnership Board).

She promises to “update you as soon as this is completed” [an immediate *cough cough* investigation into the sending of the rogue letter]. I’m not sure how they can possible provide any patient care they are so busy investigating their own shite practice, but needless to say, we ain’t heard squit about this one. Or the one into why we have a separate set of minutes to the Sloves. It’s just toss wank really. All talk and no action.

I’ve spent two evenings this weekend filling in the gaps on a chronology of interactions with us that Sloven Health sent out to stakeholders at some point in the past few months. A chronology that fed into one snarky phone conversation I had with the Director of Social Services (Oxfordshire) and who knows what thoughts of other stakeholders it was circulated to. This chronology of ‘Trust actions with the family from Connor’s death to sharing of the final investigation report with Connor’s mother‘ is an example of airbrush extraordinaire. It erases so many twists and turns that have caused us such intense distress. Unforgivable. I’ve felt almost winded going back through the old emails and letters around what’s happened since LB died to produce an accurate version of this document.

The sadness, indescribable pain and rage that we’re forced into this space. That I’m sitting at 11pm on bank holiday monday reading through and identifying the careless, shite and continuing rubbish actions by Sloven. Because we need to.

Because no one with any power is doing anything to stop it. Because 10 months on there is no accountability at any level for what happened to our son. Who was in the care of the state and drowned in the bath before he set off for a trip to the Oxford Bus Company.

I really don’t get it.