Work.
Family, friends, dog.
Threads. Life.
Work.
A beautiful young man killed in an NHS hospital trust 10 years ago. A boy firmly placed in an outside ‘those who count’ zone across his lifetime.
A loose and disparate collective of largely white, entitled NHS/local authority execs and middle management meithering. Buck passing and blame with unchallenged self-importance, posturing, pettiness. Drawing on a well worn box of dirty tricks.
Connor got into the bath that morning knowing he was going to visit the Oxford Bus Company. A visit arranged by his teaching assistants come pallbearers.
I don’t know what he thought that morning. There’s no detail about what happened. No records. No ‘evidence’. No illicit notes taken home or bedroom photos with large soft toys.
The verdict in the Letby case has generated shock, revulsion. Horror. Devastated parents/families left to deal with the unspeakable. The unthinkable. Their futures immediately woven into a fabric of horror and disbelief.
And a similar grotesque stack of obfuscation and performative (non) action from layers of (some familiar) senior NHS and regulatory body figures.
‘We need to stop appointing crap people to NHS boards.’
‘We must change the toxic culture.’
We need to blah blah blah.
Billybullshite spouters who will continue to spout after the eventual publication of the possibly statutory public inquiry. Words that must slice through the families who didn’t know their beautiful babies were murdered. Before they could do any knowing. They, themselves catapulted into this space of dishonesty, self preservation, bullying and cruelty.
‘It’s like the Wild West’, said the wonderful Richard West who is working on our Witness to Harm project looking at the experiences of families who experience regulatory processes.
There is incredulity that the NHS famed for never saying sorry despite having a ‘Say sorry’ policy apologised to Letby and her parents. And gruelling familiarity as the then CEO wandered away from Chester to pick up other senior roles a week after her arrest. The rewards for mediocrity, ignorance and unwavering devotion just one red flag among many in this deeply flawed institution.
That never changes.
Work.
Family, friends, dog.
Threads. Life.
Repeat.
mydaftlife 
NHS Ceo’s value their own reputation above the wellbeing of their patients. True.
NHS Ceo’s dishonestly spout about learning lessons and how they value all their patients after every preventable deatn. True.
They will all now go on to other jobs in the NHS. Just a slap on the wrist. True
The NHS is broken. True.
Most doctors and nurses are being let down badly by overpaid CEO’s. True
There will be the statutory cover up. True.
True Pauline.
I spent the afternoon trying to add something here that could point the way forward. And I got very depressed there seems to be insurmountable obstacles to putting at least some of it right.
But:
Thing is, the NHS is struggling – true.
.
I think we are being led towards believing it is beyond repair and that we will let this broken thing be chucked out to the benefit of the same people who have caused it to bleed.
What has happened in this hospital is a ghastly example of all that becomes terribly wrong when the worst people lead and the best people have been made too fearful to object.
I am delighted that the consultants fought back. I am delighted that this horrible, horrible human being is in jail.
I am delighted that these self seeking Execs have exposed themselves as both stupid and unworthy – and that the nurse profession has been noisily exposed for so disgustingly protecting its own – again.
We will get a Public Inquiry. And we will all shout until the findings are pursued to the letter.
The NHS is not dead. It is just hurt.
WE will not let it die.
Yes, Another chance for the NHS to get it wrong again.
Justice 4 LB was the first thing I thought about when I heard the Letby verdict. I remembered the only reason the senior manager in overall charge was eventually was forced from her post was because of questionable financial issues (uncovered in part by the the campaign’s meticulous research into Trust papers) – NOT for failing to ensure the safety of patients. Makes you realise how exceptional LB’s campaign was and sadly how it’s “success” was quickly buried.
Never a truer collection of pertinent facts. The NHS (say sorry) policy is like a revolving door, for want of better words is utter bollocks. The (best endeavours) bullshitery, or we will try, is anything but. I speak as both professional mother to an amazing young man, who 8 weeks ago become a near miss. His / my life has changed for ever in a second, again, on the same lines of your beautiful son, Matthew, Oliver and the many many others.
What I have learned as a forensic digger of info, client after client, case after case, is this: (If they cared – they would). It’s the incentive or misalignment of incentive that’s skewed. What’s in it for them to change?
Those with LD, complex needs and or ASD etc, are forgotten about, the CEO’s / Heads of state, or whom ever give not a matar duelling toss.
My role has gone from fighting cases to literally stopping people from being killed.
Yet I sit, with my own son, damaged for life. What will his serious case review yield… the same bollocks “lessons will be learned”? Until the next and the next and the next.
The evidence I sit with in terms of cases – goes to the top. Whilst-blowers whistle, for what? We all know how it ends.
Morals do not pay the mortgage.
Get up, poo, work, fight, eat, panic and hope that my child won’t die or others want die, sleep …. and Repeat.
In solidarity
Janet Willicott, a mommy and legal health human…. Who does carer.