We now know the internally commissioned external investigation draft report* will arrive by courier on Saturday morning. It’s good to know exactly when to expect it but this is an enormous thing to wait for.
So enormous, I’m not sure how we deal with it really. Not your usual post that’s for sure. I doubt the courier will have any idea of the importance of what s/he is delivering. Of this carefully crafted set of words relating back to last summer and earlier. To when LB was alive. If I open the door maybe I’ll mention it in passing as I sign the form. Or maybe I’ll hide in bed. Gnawing on my knuckles until it’s all signed for and in the house. It’s tricky when you don’t have any reference points around ‘reading an investigation report into your child’s death in hospital’.
Then there are the decisions around how to read it. When to read it and where to read it. Rip it open and devour every page on the spot? Carefully make a cup of tea and settle down in a carefully chosen space (chosen on what criteria?) to carefully read these words (when?) that may provide an explanation about how what happened could possibly have happened.
And that’s the biggy of course. We kind of know this already. Having read every written record relating to LB’s care for the last six months and the CQC report. But what if there are other lurking horrors to discover? Nah. Surely not. There can’t be.
But then there’s the uncertainty around the outcome of the investigation. What we’ll do with whatever conclusions (if any) the report comes to. I have no idea. I’ve never seen a report like this. Will it be about LB? Or will it focus on ‘learning outcomes’? Is LB already consigned to the dustbin of ‘a lesson to be learned from’? (Or more likely tied up in the yellow hazardous waste his dirty clothes used to come back from nursery in). Or will the report be about him? Our dude. The legend.
Well there ain’t anything we can do about what’s going to be in the report on Saturday morning at this stage. So I’m thinking the advice from a lovely mate from earlier is probably worth a punt; try and think about it as a necessary step to get through in this process. A step forward. Unbearable but movement.
In that case, we should probably stock up on ice-cream and ginger beer. And have Keane lined up. Ready like old times.
mydaftlife 
Sara – I don’t know the origin of the, “Internally commissioned external investigation draft report” but they should know better than to deliver a potentially contentious document to a victim of crime (which you are as LB’s mother) on a Saturday morning when there’s no-one available if you need to ‘sound off’. If it’s coming from Sloven, I’ve told them about this ad nauseam – though you’re lucky – they often do this at or just before the close of business on a Friday and therefore cause another lost night’s sleep. On one occasion, an individual Sloven official did it at the close of business before going on holiday for two weeks!! It is rank bad practice (unless you requested it to be delivered then) and indicative of a bullying culture.
If its anything like the “Internally commissioned external investigation draft report”, which I’ve just been reading, I would hide under the bed (or go out) so they have to redeliver it on Monday!