Earlier this week, Rich was out and I was home alone. The growing condiment pile felt right and a deep late Autumn sunset beckoned. I grabbed my camera and headed to South Park. I bumped into a few people I knew walking down there. Brief, warm and casual catch ups. Heading off between each with an eye on the sun. Despite knowing from a newly discovered nerdy site sunset was at 6.52pm.
Across the park there were smatterings of students/freshers, young people and others. Being or pounding across the park in serious running strides, sitting, walking, talking, laughing and playing games. Loosely shared eye and phone action on the slowly setting sun.
I dipped down to dandelion level while waiting.
It was quiet and spectacularly beautiful.
Walking home [after the reported 6.52 sunset and 30 minute twilight window] I felt peaceful.
The next day my phone rang. The latest Care Quality Commission inspection of Southern Health (Sloven) was embargoed until Friday. Ah. Ok… Sloven. A Trust with an astonishingly grim back drawer full of failing CQC inspections. A Health Services Journal award winning CEO (2011 from memory) who doshed a mate millions before disappearing with a £250k pay off back in 2016.
Yep.
All that still trips off my ‘you effectively killed my beautiful, beyond loved son’ tongue. And it will continue to do so until I really understand why.
Back in March we naively thought the outcome of the Health and Safety Executive criminal prosecution and £2m fine was a seminal moment in NHS history. A shot across the bow of all Trusts. A judge pulling no punches in his ruling. Generating critical scrutiny across the health and social care provision of this crapshite trust and wider. Good care, ligature points, care plans, medication storage, staff supervision and so much more sorted. These are basics after all.
Reading this latest report generated yet more tears and distress. How low can you continue to go in providing ‘health’ and ‘social care’.
The inspection in June 18 generated a warning notice around the safety of young people in a Southampton based unit. A warning notice around safety.
Five years after our son drowned. [He drowned]
And so many others have died.
The Sloven exec board are still stretching out their entitled legs. Apparently kicking any whiff of a negative inspection report into the long grass. No determination, commitment or even interest in trying to own these continued failings.
Reminding me of those early, baking hot July days. Almost five years to the day swatting away the CQC inspection like they did with LB’s death. [He died]
There were 20 breaches of legal requirements that the trust must put right. We found 74 things that the trust should improve to comply with a minor breach that did not justify regulatory action, to prevent breaching a legal requirement, or to improve service quality
We issued seven requirement notices to the trust. Our action related to breaches of 21 regulations in seven core services.
I dunno. Reading it I jotted so many notes. Bashing on the keyboard. Scratching furious fucking pen to paper. So much so wrong. Still. Beyond wrong.
The trust had not completed the anti-ligature work at Leigh House (identified as needed in previous CQC inspections) which posed a significant risk to young people and was not being adequately mitigated against.
Governance systems did not always provide robust assurance to the trust board about issues within services. For example, we found the board were not cited on staffing issues in some services, low levels of staff supervision, poor compliance with care planning and an inability to provide accurate restraint data.
And more:
Poorly written and stored care plans; no patient involvement in or knowledge of care plans; poor note keeping; not following the MHA; lack of staff supervision; inappropriate medication management and storage; risks to young people in MH services; lack of hygiene and broken equipment; issues around privacy and gender; safeguarding issues; ward temperature issues; lack of competence in syringe driver training.
The same old and more. Five years on.
Lives tossed out like rubbish. With no consideration. Reputation ruling the roost still..
This sentence strangely leapt out, from the 54 page report.
Ensure the toilet door in the section 136 suite at Antelope house is replaced quickly.
Sort the toilet door. It only takes a few fucking hours.
mydaftlife 
Nothing has changed since I started my training in 1984. My 25yrs+ career in the NHS ended after my whistleblowing on a colleague.
Wendy. I admire your courage.
I have internal e mails from within an NHS Trust where 13 staff covered up for the refusal of a consultant to answer a complaint and then refused to treat me thereafter.. His e mail referred to me as this bloody man. . Although the PHSO received copies of these e mails they refused to consider them as they ” were not part of the original complaint “. Sadly too many people in the NHS , at every level cover up for colleagues for fear of losing their own jobs. It is a bit like the Freemasons pledge or the Mafia Omerta.
Sometimes I think it was courage, or at least a feeling that I could not possibly allow what was going on to go unchecked. What then happened (being turned on by management and the staff who were “right behind” me) made me wonder whether I’d done the right thing.
Respect
Bureacracy is what this cover up is called. I am lucky to be alive after f0ur doctors over three days failed to diagnose Sepsis. back in 2014. I have complained both to the Trust my G.P. and the PHSO to no avail. I am now looking to a no win no fee solicitor to bring my concerns into the light of day in a court of law. .
I am not after money as no amount can compensate for the daily problems I now have, byt it seems that the only way that these nasty corrupt people will take notice is by hitting them in the pocket.
Keep up the good work. !
John – as you are not after money, have you thought of using the Small Claims Track of the County Court – a less formal process, in which many represent themselves? The maximum award in the small claims Court (as it is commonly known) is now £10K and (in most cases) costs are not awarded even if you lose. However, The first step, whether or not you engage a lawyer, is to write a ‘Final Letter before Action’ to the prospective defendants – you can (and should) do this before issuing a claim: it’s part of the Civil Procedure Rules, Pre-action Protocols and will often wake people up to reality.
However, it sounds like you should claim more than £10K so a lawyer might be better. Did you know the Bar Counsel has a direct access scheme though which the public can instruct Counsel without paying a solicitor to do so. I know Counsel who is a qualified barrister and medical doctor.
Also, the defendants are required to send Final Action letters to NHS Resolution (formerly NHS Litigation Service), who boast that a large number of claims are settled before cases get to Court. A lawyer would have to do this first anyway so you may as well do it yourself.
If you want further help, please use the details at https://999crash.wordpress.com/contact-2/
My Dear Sarah I think of you LB and your family often in particular each and every time I support her to the toilet this week we are in Cornwall overt the years I have got used to the odd looks I get when guarding the disabled toilet whilst she is in it “not every dissability is visible” She looks extremely able I can be heard calling out to her “are you ok darling?” of course if she does not respond I’m in there.
Vicki, I have just had my Blue Badge renewed after three years trial. Too many people make judgements of disability, seen or unseen ,. when they have never had personal experience . Sad but true.
We challenged Nick Broughton on the CQC report and other things at the Board Meeting held in in public on 2 October. He acted angrily when blind-sided – another trait to which others have been subjected. Listen to the sound recording when published. I perceive that the new regime (post Alan Yates) is reverting to type: they simply do not know the meaning of open, honest and transparent.
Crash, the last thing anybody wants , who is involved with the NHS is open honest and transparent . I would suggest there is one word to describe the majority which is evasive.
I al now dealing with another evasive bunch of “legal” doctors, calling themselves the” “Medical Defence Union ” which is another mafia type organisation set up to defend G.P.s. who get it wrong. and who receive membership fees to protect G.P.s from their patients.
Many thanks your offer of help, still gathering evidence for proceedings under new GDPR regulation . Also have an interested no win no fee solicitor.. My concern is to expose the cover ups and cocks up at every level in the NHS Trust who dealt with me and the G.Ps who helped them cover up. .
John – I don’t know when your event occurred but please remember that GDPR and The Data Protection Act 2018 only came into force in May 2018: it is not retrospective. The 1998 Act still applies for earlier breaches prior to that. I can fully recommend the Information Commissioner’s Office: they certainly do not act like the Mafia. They are not even frightened to take on the police https://ico.org.uk/about-the-ico/news-and-events/news-and-blogs/2018/06/gloucestershire-police-fined-for-revealing-identities-of-abuse-victims-in-bulk-email/.
Thanks crash First incident occurred 14/08/2014, and as It was a GP and three doctors failed to diagnose Sepsis I nearly died. Massive cover up by NHS and PHSO and still ongoing. I know about GDPR being an EU wide update on DPA 1998.
Evasion and avoidance of accountability is endemic in the NHS at every level.