The mothership, blunt instruments and telling again

Posted on February 25, 2016 by sarasiobhan

I had a phone interview earlier with an investigator investigating Sloven nursing staff on behalf of the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC). This has taken so long to happen because Sloven spent an age and a day doing their internal disciplinary investigations [of course] and consistently refusing to say who they were investigating [of course]. We referred a consultant to the General Medical Council (GMC) back in May 2014 after being told by ‘a source’ she’d done a bunk. The nurses weren’t so clear cut.

So today I found out the names of the six referred nurses. Six. And no medics. The Sloven sloven industry as always delivering pure shite. Take over (land lucrative) provision from afar, leave it to sink into a hellhole of discontent, malaise and fear and, when the inevitable shitola happens, make sure no one within a fifty mile radius of the mothership catches any of the fall out. Particularly anyone approaching board or CEO level.

In her opening spiel, the investigator offered me the services of a liaison officer to ‘provide support during this process’. Bit late in the day for that really. It reminded me of the Health and Safety Executive leaving us a booklet about what to do after the unexpected death of a family member. About 18 months after LB died. Learning point 1,345,987 If you come into contact with families some while down the grief and bereavement road to nowhere, perhaps think about the standard bells you typically offer and frame them appropriately…

Next stop was the blog.

‘You, er, write a blog. Could you not write about this, it may disrupt the process…’

Mmm. There wouldn’t be a process if I didn’t write a blog. And despite the ludicrous shrieks of the Dr Crapshite brigade, I’ve not been a name shamer on these pages. (Well not below leadership level… the likes of KP, Petter, Jacko and Hudspeth who I reckon get paid to swallow the pill of possible publicity). I agreed to not mention the content of the interview.

Then we were off.

It was so blinking distressing to go over everything again. Even more distressing, if that’s possible, after experiencing LB’s inquest and hearing the (still not quite) full story of what happened. Layers and layers and layers of wrong that simply scream out. While crap all happens.

‘Can’t you use the context I provided to the GMC?’ I asked after the first question.

‘No, we need to have what happened in your words.’

‘They were my words‘, my brain screamed… like they were for the police. For the coroner… for Verita. Learning point 1,345,988 There is no justification for repeated telling when the telling has already been done in an official capacity unless people want to. Otherwise, agreement with the person/family that they are happy for a cut and paste version to be used from another official telling should do. There is always the option to add or delete bits at the next stage.. [Howl].

Such disconnect among the various arms of the (non) accountability dance. A fresh beating with a blunt instrument on each iteration (I now suspect with even more nails as the futility of the telling becomes more and more apparent). Perhaps 1,345,989 should be a brief note, early on, stating:

Now you’ve experienced the worst thing you could ever (not dare to) imagine, we’re going to spent the next few years or more (well as long as it takes) torturing you in a combination of bureaucratic, thoughtless, deliberate, ignorant and incompetent ways…

Yours,

The State

‘Do you want a break?’ asked the investigator several times during the interview.

My brain seemed to be hosting a particularly absurd but unavoidable horror show that made it difficult to speak. Sitting at work, I drilled the phone into my ear and sort of strangely gargled, cried, caterwauled and clawed my way through the following hour. I didn’t want a break. I just wanted it over.

[Final reflection: I had the odd moment while writing this post that I haven’t had before. Would I somehow jeopardise the NMC investigation. Not by disrupting the process but by simply pissing them off? I don’t know. But we’ll never know anything if things remain secret.]

Questions from the public

Posted on February 18, 2016 by sarasiobhan

A short post. I read this extract from the latest Sloven board minute papers last night and had one of those moments when I couldn’t see the screen for tears. James should not have died. Mike Holder wrote to Katrina Percy in 2012 detailing the safety concerns he had. These concerns were ignored. The CEO and board didn’t care.

Mrs Younghusband should not have to go to a NHS Trust board meeting to say the unspeakable.

There is a clear and incontrovertible link here between corporate decision making and James’ death. And the slimy Sloven bastards tried to stop Mrs Y from taking civil action by limiting the time she has to act.

The lack of action by those who should be acting (Monitor, Department of Health, NHS England, CQC, yawn-di ya-di da) makes me wonder when most of the principles guiding the NHS were ditched? Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust is no part of a National Health Service I recognise or believe(d) in.

Board meeting

This ain’t going away

Posted on February 16, 2016 by sarasiobhan

Mid Feb. And no action about the Mazars review. Extraordinary. I watched a documentary last night from 1981. Silent Minority. By a filmmaker called Nigel Evans. (He died recently but there are several of his documentaries on youtube and I recommend dipping in. A remarkable archive.)

Earlier today someone asked me if I thought anything will happen with the Mazars review. A question I think we never thought would be asked, back in the summer of 2015, when early findings were shared with the review panel. The findings evidenced a barbaric disregard for the human rights of certain people that could only be a matter of national importance. The leaking of the Mazars review, and subsequent debate in the House of Commons on December 10, supported this.

And then tumbleweed. A cynically timed ‘offical’ publication date just before crimbo and crap all meaningful action by NHS England, Sloven, Monitor, CQC and Jeremy Hunt since has generated serious despair in the Justice shed.

This negativity was reinforced last week after listening to an update about the Learning Disability Mortality Review programme (LeDeR) based at Bristol University last week. A watered down version of a national mortality review board because the government (previous and current) thought premature deaths of learning disabled people weren’t worth proper funding. A piecemeal programme with little independent scrutiny and rigour (and unfunded public involvement).

Strangely, I started feel more positive today. Helped, in part, by various tweets, emails, facebook posts highlighting the obvious lack of fit between ‘official’ talk and people’s lives. And regular emails/messages relaying sometimes small changes and shifts. Unlike in 1981, social media allows a diverse range of different people to collectively come together, contribute, support and do stuff. #JusticeforLB is increasingly known about in a way we never imagined. In March a short play by Edana Minghella about LB will feature in Twelve Angry Women in Brighton. The Justice quilt will be on display at the Kings Fund next week. Plans are underway for a late evening choral event alongside the quilt in the Warwick University Arts Centre in the summer.

The Mazars review clearly highlighted eugenic practices embedded within the structure and processes of at least part of the NHS and social care. This ain’t going away. And the non action by those who should be acting is starkly visible. The atrocities highlighted by Nigel Evans (among others) which continue today in different versions remain beyond wrong. We have options he could only have dreamed of back in the day when the content of his documentary was challenged. That his work is freely available on YouTube underlines the potential for social media to render these happenings visible and ensure they remain so.

[Photos are from the recent extraordinary Sloven Board meeting. Thanks to Saskia Baron for the Nigel Evans link]

Postscript: Bizarrely, just a few hours after posting this, Rob Greig published this article in Community Care, saying similar.

Doubters, deniers and belieSHers

Posted on December 13, 2015 by sarasiobhan

Helter skelter times. With the emergence of the key findings of the Mazars review via the BBC this week. Having banged on relentlessly for over two years now, we feel some relief that a wider set of people may be gaining insight into the improbably inappropriate, incompetent and deeply arrogant actions of Katrina Percy (KP), the CEO of Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust (Sloven), and her merry (board of) wo/men.

Sloven have demonstrated tooth enamel removing disregard for the content of one of the most scandalous reviews to be (almost) published this century. A review that has generated what Graham Shaw has rightly described as ‘a deeply-troubling episode in the history of the NHS’.

As we followed the painfully slow unravelling of the top layers of Sloven ‘leadership’ in the last few days, including a late night statement from KP that made me wonder if some cheeky chapster had hacked the ITV website, doubters and deniers started to appear on twitter. [And in person, as Mark Neary experienced.]

For some reason the Health Service Journal (HSJ) led a paternalistic backlash. Cautioning against anyone paying too much attention to this half baked and strongly challenged review. This may be because the HSJ, like us, had been leaked a copy of the independent review Sloven had commissioned to examine the methodology of the (independent) review into their practices.

[At this stage, you may need a moment or two to;

Scratch your head with incredulity
Laugh hysterically
Get a cold beer from the fridge to cool down your forehead
Weep at the bottomless pit of money Sloven can seemingly throw at wriggling out of ‘tricky situations’
Perform some other action to make this completely inappropriate action somehow digestible…]

Sloven commissioned Professor Mohammed* to do a review focusing largely on the ‘outlier’ question. He strongly critiqued the Mazars ‘at best unsatisfactory and, at worst, incompetent’ analysis. Cripes. NHS England had already commissioned an academic to review the full methodology. Their review (of the review) asked for a fuller account of the methods used but otherwise gave it a clean bill of health.

The second group, the belieSHers, without knowing the content of Prof M’s review, believe so strongly in Sloven’s credibility (as an NHS Foundation Trust?) that the ITV statement was all they needed. Sloven said the findings were wrong. There. Sorted. And stop this sensationalist reporting without foundation. Tsk.

Overlapping this group were the disbelievers, including Roy Lilley who drew on his own ‘intelligence’ to suggest strongly that only sections of the half finished review had been leaked by a disaffected Sloven employee. Incredulity was also expressed at the commissioning of Mazars by NHS England. An audit company, FFS. I mean why not commission an independent outfit who understand the healthcare world. Like, er, Verita, I assume… The disbelievers were distinct from the belieSHers as they snarled at us to publish the review. They at least seemed prepared to accept that a robust review existed.

Finally, there were the conspiracists. Jezza Hunt had orchestrated the leaking of this review as part of his wider privatisation plot. How could there possibly be so much news coverage and an Urgent Question in the Commons on such an issue, in such a short space of time? Wow. Like Sloven, a complete disregard for the content of the report.

These positions were contradictory, sometimes extreme and ill informed. For once we were able to step back and (almost) park the swearing, rage and frustration we’ve experienced and articulated for over two years since LB died. [Howl]. And calmly reply, over and over and over again;

The review is robust. It is complete. We have a final copy. We don’t know why it still isn’t published.

The trouble is, the responses above (including Sloven’s position) make visible the typical excusing and acceptance, even expectation, of shortened lives for some people. They point to accepted processes and practices of a publicly funded health and social care system that consistently discriminates against and excludes certain ‘types’ of people. And when these people die ‘unexpectedly’, a discounting of their deaths.

That there were three days of headline news and sessions in both the House of Commons and Lords on the back of the headline findings of a leaked report, suggests that that the findings of this review are hugely important to the wider public. Outside of the doubters, deniers and belieSHers who, well what do you know… are all firmly embedded within the healthcare world.

The review will be published this week.

*Of Mid Staffs fame