We received two weighty boxes of inquest bundles on Friday. (Bundles are lever arch files of well organised, numbered documents.) The ‘medical records’ bundle contains records we ain’t seen before. Despite requesting all of LB’s records in July 2013.
Our solicitor repeatedly requested missing records during those early months. Documents dribbled in. Peppered with ‘Oh yes we have!‘…and then ‘Er, missing docs attached’ type responses. In February 2014 came the extraordinary realisation that none of the unit records we had were complete. We’d never received full copies of unit meeting minutes before or after LB died. Leaving us unaware that his seizure activity was disputed and dismissed.
Disputed… Dismissed???
[Howl.] [Can you imagine?]
Katrina Percy wrote to us in Feb 2014 apologising for this evidence of her piss poor leadership. A letter sent the day the first Verita report was published. [She didn’t mention the words piss poor or leadership but that’s what it was. The odd mistake may be ‘explained’ away as an error. When mistakes start stacking, up as they have and continue to do so, it can only be piss poor leadership.]
He died.
LB drowned.
In November 2014 the coroner sent us copies of the Initial Management Assessment (IMA) [I think that’s what it stands for] report and 72 hour SIRI document, neither of which we’d received. Over a year after LB died. More key documents slipping through the flakey Sloven disclosure net.
And yesterday, even more unseen footage…
We simply don’t understand how an NHS Trust can get away with such blatant disregard of candour and transparency. Without censure. We don’t understand how it’s acceptable that families have to, if they can scrape themselves off the floor long enough and have the resources to do so, police this stuff. We have excellent legal representation, costs covered by remarkable fundraising actions of all sorts of people and pro bono support. We’ve also research skills that enable us to wade through this shite and identify omissions, crap and dishonesty. A lot of people don’t.
I’ve lost count of how many times we’ve (repeatedly) said These are public bodies… How can this be? How often we’ve been let down by people who must know the implications and consequences of their actions. They may have particular job titles/authority but they’re still human at the end of the day. Just baffling. With an icey core.
Back to the bundles. No surprise that the biggest bundle in the bundle box is the ‘Sloven Policy bundle’. A remarkable 1030 pages of policies and procedures.
Nothing slipping through the net here of course. Nah. I won’t bother checking.
mydaftlife 
Sara – none of this surprise me as I know that despite asking for everything much of Dani’s files have never been sent to me – whole sections missing. When I received the information I had to sit down and sort it as it came to me unsorted. None of the sans, or x-rays ever came nor the reports that you should have been with them. It took a year to get her blood results – they should have been easy as they were on a computer record. Every piece of paper that should have been in there signed by Dr sheila Picken is missing – her name appears once in the 6 Lever Arch files we now have – she ordered countless blood tests, x-rays etc. Even the reqest for the scan which finally showed the mass in Dani’s heart is missing.
I am one of those who no-one wants to help – countless lawyers have told me that they would not go up against Addenbrooke’s – told to go away and accept what happened and get on with my life. How do I do that when Dani was the second child I buried due to the gross negligence of NHS hospitals. I never fought for justice in 1976 – now I must – somehow.
Addenbrooke’st together with our GPs have made it impossible to get to the truth, no PM, no inquest – despite Dani dying “unexpectedly” (their word), in public (at the bus station) and even on the admission of her then consultant he did not know why she had listeria infected ascitis. They concocted a story and did not want anything further then “renal failure due to Frasier syndrome ” put on her death certificate – I managed to get a small change to this i.e. her heart condition which ironically was there fault from 4 years previously.
They – the hospital trusts – are determined that no-one holds them to account – so well done that you have got so far and hope that you do manage to hold them to account.
dig deep in the bundles Sara , it wasn’t until we saw every doc that we spotted hiding in clear sight a bizarre patient note that clearly could not even belong to our daughter. Deconstruct the tale they would tell using your own skills and those invaluable legal resources. Another beautiful poignant photograph. It is still not too late for someone to act in kindness, ours was RL who sent hardcopy of a doc to us that confirmed a level of arse covering and collusion we never truly believed could exist.
Sara you must be functioning on your bones and sinews.
I feel I have a house sitting on my head at the moment.
To those to whom it may apply:
Your blindness of vision, to what happens when safe and kind care is seen a ‘want not a need’, and your deafness and blindness to the guilt, agony, fear and guts squeezed pain and grief of parents when other people failed to protect their son or daughter from so called ‘care’….is shameful.
Your arrogant expectation that a ‘good’ parent just goes away……is shameless.
And all the other casualties: the shiny new principled, passionate workers who find out the very hard way that they too are powerless. Who have the ‘Hobsons’ of either become as blaming and defensive aggressive as the rest, and group huddle for protection under the toxic umbrella of dodgy dogma and wonky team unity….or leave with their health and principles broken and ashamed.
Shame on you.
Molly their blindness and deafness is because they are so far up their own arses that they function completely in the dark. Keep covering their arses keeps the light out too!.
In too many meeting with us, no notes were/are taken in our presence, by LA. Too often notes appear cobbled together ad hoc after the event. Because of this and because of disagreement (me) over what was discussed agreed, I began to take notes at all meetings, and email them in for correction. For ages no response was the response from LA. Then for a wonderful couple of years a new operations manager arrived, always replied, always thanked me and had them circulated into the team meetings; but she left.
Think I might start to do this again.
One has only has to read of the ghastly injustice and damage that occurs when professional groups have sloppy systems, and can ‘cooperate’ with each other in writing down fact after events (Hillsborough?), to conclude that injustices are inevitable?
Wading through the shite, yes and finding someone had included and sent us pages of notes they said didn’t exist. No they said these aren’t notes. No they are…….lots of page turning, searching through bags, files, walking about. Are they notes then? Well yes and no but more no. Yes or no? They could be but might not be. They are aren’t they? Yes, sighs all round. Finding they had taped half a FHM readout from 2012 to half from 2014. What!!!! No no you haven’t read it correctly, err yes as am capable of reading dates surprisingly. Just a simple admin mistake of course!! Got to keep wading. xx