One of those days

Posted on January 13, 2016 by sarasiobhan

I went to work this morning via a brief meeting with Monitor. Based near Waterloo Station. After publication of the Mazars review in December I was invited to meet with Monitor to:

discuss the process which we are going through, jointly with the CQC, to establish the key issues which require addressing to ensure improvements are made at the trust and that the wider concerns raised by the report are addressed.

I chased up this meeting last Friday and it was arranged for 9am today with the CEO, Medical and Nursing Directors and Complaints Manager. Assuming the key issues issue was still open, I set off on the Oxford Tube at 6am. A front of the bus experience.

After introductions, the CEO began by apologising for LB’s death. Bit odd, really after all this time but a solid apology. I wondered if the Tom effect is spreading. We moved on to what Monitor is going to do about the Mazars review and Sloven. Very little really. The Mazars review is being read carefully, CQC will inspect and if failings are identified Monitor will act on them. Apparently. There was no evidence to remove Board Directors/CEO.

At this point my heart slowly melted. Having sat through over two hours of the Sloven ‘extraordinary board meeting’ yesterday when the only two words the CEO and Board Chair could string together were ‘action’ and ‘plan’. And the action plan they presented lacked clarity and included typos. Hearing My Life My Choice trustees describe their concern about safety in Slovens ‘care’. Having read the Mazars review. Having experienced over two years of relentlessly crap actions. Having heard so many other harrowing tales from families…

These words made no sense to me.

Sitting round a table, on the third floor of Wellington House, I lamely raised a few issues. Like how it probably wasn’t a good idea to take shiny new Sloven policies at face value. Despite their epilepsy toolkit no Sloven staff member at LB’s inquest demonstrated any knowledge of epilepsy two years after his death. And so on. Stuff written over and over again here and in other spaces.

There was no discussion. Whether that was because I was clearly so incredulous, enraged and upset or whether it was because there wasn’t really anything to be discussed I don’t know. Action was clearly already decided and agreed with Sloven. I asked what I was doing there. To receive a formal apology was the answer. The meeting ended at 9.06am. Publication of the Monitor press release pretty much beat me back to Oxford. A six hour round trip. For a six minute meeting.

So what is the action? Sloven have agreed to implement the Mazars recommendations, get expert assurance on these improvements and Monitor will appoint an Improvement Director “to support and challenge the trust as it fixes its problems” I’m reminded of some pretty bizarre conversations back in 2014 when we were encouraged by a few people, including David Nicholson, to meet with the Sloven CEO to help her to understand where she was going wrong and ‘find her way’. How anyone can maintain a leadership role when they are so clearly out of their depth is beyond me.

Of course there were Monitor enforcement actions back in 2013. And Sloven put the same jolly spin then as they have now; just a few weeks of ‘working with Monitor’.

On the way to work, I just thought about how we were kidding ourselves that anyone (senior) in health and social care really gave a shit about learning disabled people. The Mazars review is a truly shocking report and the only appropriate response so far has been demonstrated by the discussion in the House of Commons when it was leaked. I was reminded of Rob Greig’s anecdote when he was told years ago by a CEO that jobs aren’t lost over the learning disability agenda.

We ain’t really progressed at all. Sadly. #JusticeforLB has contributed more than than most of the highly paid/rewarded people/organisations in this area for two years now. We have no budget and the work is done in our spare time. That is, pretty much every minute outside of our working hours. I think it’s fair to say that morale in the shed is pretty low right now. I’m just glad we’ve shone a fierce light on the shameful practices and fakery of NHS and local authority practices. Practices done and sustained by people.

Update: I received a briefing about the Monitor meeting this morning (13th Jan) from NHS England. You couldn’t make it up. It says Monitor will announce their actions on Jan 12th. So the 9am meeting was purely about squeezing in a meeting with me before then. A meeting for the sake of saying they’d met us. Breathtaking. Six hours travel for a 6 minute meeting. And no expenses paid.

Chairs, ships and learning journeys

Posted on January 8, 2016 by sarasiobhan

I keep meaning to write something about the money Sloven spent on legal representation to defend their reputation during LB’s inquest. My Life My Choice received this information from the Sloven Board Chair earlier this week. £300,000 apparently. £300,000. And we are to blame. Yep.

But as always a new bit of Sloven crap is always around the corner. Tonight this included a reply to my painstakingly written letter (emphasis on the pain) to the Council of Governors (which is chaired by the Board Chair) from the Board Chair. [I know]. Here it is, with my thoughts in bold.

Dear Dr Ryan and Mr Huggins

Thank you for providing me with a copy of your letter to the Council of Governors of Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust. Firstly can I take this opportunity on behalf of the Board, Council of Governors and the Trust as a whole to unreservedly apologise for the actions that caused the death of your son, Connor, and the hurt that you have been put through since that time.

It’s worth returning to Ally Roger’s superb undergrad dissertation here. Ally talks about passive sentences which are constructed to show no one is responsible. She says such manipulations of participant responsibility may or may not be deliberate. ‘The actions’ and ‘the hurt that you have been put through’ used here suggest that the Board Chair ain’t really taking ownership of the flourishing apology he offers.

Connor’s death was preventable and this is accepted by the Trust and we are truly sorry that he died.

I’m dunno why we keep hearing this ‘accepted by the Trust’ line. A more heartfelt ‘We know LB’s death was preventable and happened because we failed to look after him properly. We take full responsibility for his death’ is more appropriate. Where does ‘accept’ come from? It’s so grudging, particularly when it was bleedingly obvious from the second it happened that LB should never have died [Howl]. Such peculiar and upsetting phrasing. I don’t doubt the truly sorry bit here which is owned of course. They must rue the day really given everything that’s unfolded.

In your letter you refer to the Mazars ‘review of deaths of people with a Learning Disability or Mental Health problem in contact with Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust’ recently published.

So the only point picked up by the Board Chair in his response to my lengthy and detailed letter is the Mazars review. Wow. All the other stuff, like the upset and distress caused to our kids by the actions of staff during the inquest (and the content raised during that two weeks) just dismissed. The focus, as ever, on the reputation stuff.

It is worth putting on record that the Trust accepts the recommendations contained within the report. We fully accept that the quality of processes for investigating and reporting a patient death required improvement.

The hole digging just gets deeper and deeper. Putting on record? Eh? The Mazars review clearly details the extent of failings. The pre-publication challenges were dismissed. Sloven cocked up. No one (well outside of Monitor/CQC/Dept of Health) is asking if Sloven ‘accept’ the findings. This repeated positioning can only demonstrate how deeply dysfunctional the organisation of the ‘NHS’ is.

As the report observes there is a lack of clarity across the health and social care system regarding which agency should investigate deaths of patients in the community where they are being seen by a number of different health and social care organisations and we are keen to see clearer protocols put in place.

And bam. Straight back into their already familiar refrain; ‘We ain’t the only ones who allow people to die early and cover up their deaths…’ A truly rancid position. Underlining how this bunch learn nothing. How anyone responsible for such scandalous failings can turn round and say ‘Well, other trusts are just as bad’ makes me weep. For so many reasons.

Such a morally, ethically and professionally impoverished argument. And for this, if nothing else, the Board and CEO should stand down.

[One question I think about is what can Sloven/OCC do now? Have we, as a family/campaign, been kicked into a space where nothing they say or do will wash? And if, yes, what does that mean? Typically, from what I can see, families are sooner or later presented as irrational and unworthy of engagement. Shoulder shrugging professionals demonstrate mild bafflement, back away and appeal to establishment cronies for pity/solidarity about being in a deadlock situation with such ‘problem’ people.

This week I was choked to receive a thoughtful response from a Sloven Governor. My response was to immediately flag it up on these pages and welcome it. [Sadly, she turned out to be one of two governors who beetled out of the meeting on Tuesday straight after recording was agreed… but I’m just about holding onto the genuine sentiment expressed in her email.] I spoke to another governor after the meeting. He seemed to get it. He was human, didn’t talk shite and we’ll probably meet him before their next meeting.

The point I’m trying to make here is that families don’t want to battle. And they don’t tend to choose to battle. They are forced to. The rage comes from the need to battle and what this need says about their relative who has been harmed. This rage is deepened too often, by careless, fake, ill informed, offensive and meaningless responses…]

We are working on a range of improvements to the way that our Trust reports and investigates deaths and these are being discussed with the Trust’s key regulators and commissioners. Although much of the work has started the Board will be formally approving this plan at the extraordinary meeting on Monday 11th January.

Yep. Of course. White noise. What relevance is this to the issues I raised in my letter? This again is purely reputational repair shite.

The report identified and the Trust acknowledges that engagement with families and carers has not been to a good enough standard and this is an area that will be receiving particular attention going forward. I and the Board have a genuine desire to ensure that this Trust continually improves.

The Mazars report isn’t the first time non engagement with families has been identified in Sloven dealings. Here is an example from two years ago. I can remember when Rich Watts wrote this post. Before any sniff of the Mazars review existed. In response to the publication of Verita 1. When we naively (so blooming naively) thought that learning from LB’s death would shake up Sloven’s learning disability provision. To make out this is a newly identified issue is deeply offensive. Typical though of the Sloven way which is all about erasure. They try to erase every example of wrong doing by rigidly fixing on the future. It’s a form of bullying really. Dressed up as a ‘learning journey’.

I would be more than happy to meet with you and others to discuss what other improvements could be made so that we can ensure that lessons are properly learnt from Connor’s death and your experience of Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust.

The meeting ship has well and truly sailed, Mr Board Chair. In typical Sloven shitilla fashion. You have missed and/or stamped on every opportunity to do anything differently since LB’s death. And this non letter is further evidence of this.

Step down. Move on. And allow genuine leadership to take over. [And please don’t attempt to fawn over us at the meeting on Monday.]

Yours sincerely

Explaining #JusticeforLB to a child

Posted on January 6, 2016 by sarasiobhan

Well LB was a bit older than you. He was very funny, loving and loved buses and Eddie Stobart lorries. He got upset and a bit low when he was 18 and ended up in hospital. It was a special sort of hospital. It cost more money each week for LB to stay in that hospital than most people earn in a month. It was run by a bit of the NHS called Sloven. The NHS is supposed to look after everyone in this country when they are unwell.

It turned out that Sloven didn’t really care about patients like LB. Or care about some of their staff. Staff became fed up and some became pretty rubbish at their jobs because of this. They stopped looking after patients properly. LB had a thing called epilepsy which meant he could suddenly pass out. Staff knew this but the doctor in charge told them it wasn’t a problem.

One day LB was in the bath alone (which he shouldn’t have been) and passed out. He went under the water and died. We felt our world had ended. Sloven pretended LB would have died anyway. They said he died of natural causes. But people don’t usually die in the bath (or when they are 18). Instead of being able to feel sad and think about our beautiful boy we had to fight to get Sloven to admit LB died because they didn’t look after him properly.

Sloven refused to do this and the people, like NHS England or Monitor, who were supposed to make sure Sloven did the right thing didn’t. Nobody who should have sorted this out, did anything. Usually when you work you have a boss who makes sure you do your job properly. And your boss has a boss. It turns out, in the NHS, the bosses of bits of it can do whatever they want. The Sloven boss, called Katrina Percy, and her senior team just carried on behaving badly.

We were worried some other people might have died because they weren’t cared for properly like LB. The boss of NHS England agreed to pay for a review into other deaths that happened in Sloven’s care.

Meanwhile, a lot of other people, all sorts of people, joined in the fight to try and get Sloven to take responsibility for LB’s death. They did all sorts of brilliant stuff. Sports stuff, music stuff, they made films, animations, held cake sales, did embroidery, gardening, drew pictures of buses, flew flags, put LB’s name on buses and trucks and all sorts. Lots of people began to know who LB is. There was lots of fun, love and happiness about LB and people like him.

The trouble is, all this fab stuff didn’t stop Sloven behaving badly. They lied to us (and others) and tried to stop us finding out what happened to LB. They spent more money than some people earn in a lifetime on lawyers to do this. Money paid for from people’s taxes. Luckily, some brilliant human rights lawyers and barristers helped us. The inquiry into LB’s death, run by someone called a coroner, found that LB died because he wasn’t looked after properly. He should still be alive.

The report into the other deaths also found that Sloven didn’t care about lots of people like LB. When they died suddenly Sloven said they died of natural causes and didn’t try to find out why they’d died. Sloven were furious about this report. They said it was rubbish and tried to stop people reading it. Then they argued that other bits of the NHS were just the same. Allowing certain people to die early and then say it was natural causes.

We think Sloven don’t really think that LB and people like him are proper people. That’s why they didn’t do anything when they died early. Like a lot of things, they’ve got this completely wrong. We just need to work out what to do about it. Because LB’s death has shown us just how badly some people are treated in this country. And how those people whose job it is to actually do something about this, don’t really care either.

891 days and Sooty tear time

Posted on January 4, 2016 by sarasiobhan

It has taken 891 days to receive a genuine, heartfelt response from a senior level Sloven/Oxfordshire County Council related bod. 891 days..

Serious Sooty tear time.

Dear Dr Ryan

Thank you for sending me a letter to the SHFT Council of Governors about the Mazars review of deaths.The letter has been circulated to all Governors.

I am happy to ensure that the points you make in the letter are shared at the meeting tomorrow but may not be able to provide an immediate response.

On a personal note, I would like to say how sorry I am about Connor’s death. I would be doing exactly what you are doing had he been my son.

Regards

Helen Keats

Thank you, Helen Keats.

2016. Starting as we mean to go on.

Posted on January 2, 2016 by sarasiobhan

I don’t know. I don’t know if it was Chunky Stan’s death this week which was so blinking sad but immensely peaceful. Or the start of a new year. But the Justice shed is cranking up the volume. Enough is enough.

First. A letter to the Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust Council of Governors: gov 1

gov 3

gov 4

Trust(s) and scandal

Posted on December 29, 2015 by sarasiobhan

No rest for the (lay) self congratulatory. Clearly. A few days after posting about #JusticeforLB related achievements, the Guardian removed their front page story about non-investigated NHS related deaths. Because of complaints (plural). Any naivety we entertained around other NHS Trusts learning from Southern (Sloven) Health NHS Foundation Trusts heavy handed and inappropriate approach to the Mazars review, disappeared. [I know..]

We’ve heard, on the grapevine, that a few Trusts are taking the Mazars/Guardian story findings seriously. And proactively exploring their own practices in relation to deaths of learning disabled patients. This is bloody brilliant.

The challenge to the Guardian story is deeply depressing though. Headline figures of the number of deaths investigated compared to number of (allegedly) unexpected deaths (from the now removed Guardian story) remain harrowing:

Somerset Partnership NHSFT 0/146
Northamptonshire NHSFT 0/63
Rotherham, Doncaster and South Humber NHSFT 0/28
Leicestershire Partnership NHSFT 1/116
Dorset Healthcare University NHSFT 2/97
Derbyshire Healthcare NHSFT 1/23
Sheffield Health and Social Care NHSFT 1/23
Leicestershire Partnership NHSFT 1/13
Penine Care NHSFT 1/10

These figures are from a Freedom of Information (FOI) request by the Guardian that asks different questions to the Mazars review. The latter found that Sloven investigated less than 1% of the total deaths of learning disabled people under their care. Less than 1%... We don’t know the exact questions the Guardian asked but whatever questions, it’s blooming clear there’s an almighty stench here. With a range of whiffs.

Some published challenges to the Guardian piece;

Somerset: these deaths were expected not unexpected.
Northamptonshire: these deaths were expected not unexpected.
Penine: the figures provided related to community and not inpatient provision.

Wow. What (particularly) stinks here is that the Mazars review, subject as it was to unprecedented (and, at times, offensive) levels of scrutiny, contains the answers to pretty much any challenge offered by Somerset, Northants and the like to their death practices. It clearly states that Initial Management Assessment (or whatever these tick box exercises, completed within a day or so of death, are called across different trusts) are not ‘an investigation’.

There is a circularity here of course. The filling in of this initial paperwork flags up that there is some level of unexpectedness, that ‘an incident’ has occured. That this is the only step taken is further evidence of the scandal gradually being uncovered.

The Mazars review underlines how there is no clear definition around what constitutes an ‘unexpected death’. A chilling position for learning disabled people who, all too often, are perceived to be of ‘inferior stock’ by health and social care professionals. Mazars used the Sloven policy which states that unexpected deaths are those that occur without anticipation or prediction, or where there is ‘a similarly unexpected collapse leading to or precipitating the event that lead to the death’. Sloven, as always, exemplary in the production of policies here (while their practice kicks back to the very edges of care, interest or humanity).

The problem is, if your death is perceived to be expected whenever (or wherever) it happens (including if you’d just got into a bath, in an NHS unit, with four ‘specialist’ staff members and five patients, in anticipation of a trip to a much loved bus company, aged just 18) then you ain’t got much of a chance. [And really, Somerset and Northants.. can you seriously argue that not one of those 209 deaths were unexpected? Not one…?]

What both the Mazars review and Guardian story (and the earlier Confidential Inquiry published in 2013 …) demonstrate (in addition to the arrogant, short sighted and bullying actions of some Trusts) is:

People labelled ‘learning disabled’ die considerably earlier than people who ain’t considered ‘learning disabled’.
These deaths are typically expected and are, therefore, rarely categorised as unexpected.
It is all too easy to label these deaths as ‘natural causes’.
Existing NHS ‘death’ processes are unfit for purpose because of 1-3 above
Recent reviews/newspaper reports and the associated responses by various Trusts to these should raise unmissable red flags to NHS England, the CQC, Monitor and the Department of Health… but we know they won’t.

The lives of certain people, like LB, simply don’t count. The extraordinary resistance to the publication of the Mazars review and post publication challenge to the Guardian story underlines both the existence of scandalous practices in the NHS and, as importantly, a refusal by those entrusted with the wellbeing of patients, to recognise what they are actually doing.

Here’s to 2016 being the year in which these practices are rootled out and stamped on. Surely.

A bunch of pests… and humanity

Posted on December 21, 2015 by sarasiobhan

Chatting with Rosie earlier. She reflected on how, after 2.5 years of (relentless) campaigning, things had really started happening over the last two or three weeks. Various people also sent emails/messages to the Justice shed today, including Andy who wrote…

What a bloody brilliant thing to see front page of The Guardian. So just to reflect – in the space of about 10 days you made front page of The Guardian and The Mirror, loads of lead stories on all the big BBC hitters (and the ITV ones), triggered an urgent parliamentary debate and, most importantly, brought together 337 hand-crafted colourful, brilliant gingerbread men to remind everyone that this is lives we’re talking about, not statistics.

Not too bad for a bunch of pests eh?

guardian front page

Yep. It is bloody brilliant. And we have been relentless. It has been a relentless campaign. Luckily dotted with laughter, spectacular contributions, solidarity, magic and more. At the same time, instead of (hideously, over complicated, inefficient and costly layers of) quality assurance/regulatory processes uncovering this scandal, it took ordinary people to just say ‘Eh. There’s a strong whiff of something wrong here. It needs investigation.’

It’s obscene that we’ve had to fight so hard to get this far. It ain’t our job to do this. Far from it. We should never have had to have spent the countless (countless) hours we have working to get some sort of accountability and justice. None of us. I can’t imagine what the collective salary is of staff in Sloven (and other Trusts), NHS England, the CQC, Monitor and the Department of Health who should have spotted that people were dying way too early, with no investigation into the cause of their deaths. [Howl].

Why didn’t they? The findings of the Confidential Inquiry into the Premature Deaths of Learning Disabled People (CIPOLD) was a pretty big red flag in 2013. The government decided to ignore the key CIPOLD recommendation and didn’t set up a national body to examine these deaths. A cracking decision. Leading to the eggy faces we’ve seen in the last week or so. With plenty more eggs lined up.

Mmm. This was after the public outcry about Winterbourne View and that embarrassingly expensive and ultimately pointless work programme that unfolded, painfully across a few years and then disappeared digitally after the election this year. Ouch. So many organisations/charities signing up to the ‘glory’ back in the day. And little or no public reflection on this collective failure… Astonishing. Meanwhile, people continue to live non lives (or worse) in these hell hole units.

Here in the J-shed we’re pretty battle weary, scarred and totally fucked off by the combination of a lack of integrity and guts, arrogance, dismissal, closing of ranks and suffocating overriding superiority that seems to circulate around the senior levels of the various public sector organisations and government*. The battle to publish the Mazars review just one example of this. Detailed at length on these pages.

For any of these salaried staff, particular those at senior levels, [excluding Katrina Percy and the Sloven Board who clearly ain’t human] there is no mystery here. As Tommy said in The Tale of Laughing Boy, it’s not rocket science. There’s a lack of understanding and recognition that people are just people. And that certain people shouldn’t die (conveniently?) years before other people. Stripped of humanity, dignity, love, respect and value. In both life and death.

The answer? I dunno. A good starting point may be to get over yourselves. Go and hang out with people who ain’t the same as you, your family and your mates. And start to recognise colour, diversity and difference.

L1017157-3

*There are clearly some brilliant people in these roles. Just many more who ain’t.

Berry berry serious and another board failing

Posted on December 19, 2015 by sarasiobhan

A minor Mazars related scandal emerged last night on twitter. Most of the doubters and deniers of the Mazars review have faded away in the light of the clear evidence the review outlines. The belieSHers have disappeared. Hard to really keep believing in a Trust with such serious failings at board level. Sigh.

Turns out an apparently random denier was still spluttering about the rubbishness of the review in a convo involving Alexa Wilson, Gallus Effie and Mark Neary last night. Super sharp sleuth Alexa worked out this laddy was the son of a Sloven Board Member, Malcolm Berryman. Adding in a good dose of comedy. (One of the reasons why I love twitter).

I was reminded of the story of LB on the bus with my dad… Berry Berry serious indeedy. This morning I tweeted about the connection and got the following response:

Oof.

After a few more tweets, he said sorry (a bigger surprise than the original tweet) but kept up a bit of anti Mazars banter. Of course twitter allows no stone unturned and it soon emerged that baby Bezza had been challenging the content of the review before it was in the public domain. Ouch. Once that detail started to spread, he locked his account so his tweets were no longer public. When Rupert Evelyn, from ITN, joined in, the account was deleted.

Looks like the Sloven surveillance team put in an urgent call to Papa Berryman alerting him to his son’s actions.

Joking aside, this tale captures so much of the problems we’ve seen over and over again with the Sloven muppets:

Poor governance, poor communication, poor judgement and consistent social media failure. Arrogance, contempt for families (other than their own), rudeness and an inability to understand, at any level, what is actually important here. [Howl].

Board members’ children or other relatives should not be given sight of confidential draft reports and discuss the content on social media. [A small part of my brain is thudding as I type this… I almost, still, cannot believe the crap I continually recount on these pages.]

The board, and Katrina Percy, need to go. Jeremy Hunt needs to put his money where his mouth is and sort this shambles out. People’s lives are at stake.

Mazars, the pop up display and lives

Posted on December 18, 2015 by sarasiobhan

For the last few months, people have been sending in gingerbread figures. We wanted to find some way of representing the learning disabled people who died in Sloven’s non care [howl], uncovered by the Mazars review, visually. George hit on the gingerbread idea and we were off. Envelopes started stacking up in the My Life My Choice office.

Over the past few weeks, while we’ve been waiting (and waiting) for publication of the report, gingerbread fairies have been working behind the scenes mounting these (337*) colourful, vibrant and quirky figures on large boards. A lot of velcro and eventually a staple gun.

We heard this week that a meeting was being held at Jubilee House today with attendees from Sloven [who were subsequently uninvited], Oxfordshire County Council and NHS England (NHSE), among others. Sounded just the place for a pop up display of the Justice gingerbreads. We would invite the meeting attendees to come out and view them.

Local press pitched up. Along with a security guard who tried to get shot of us. Private space and all. We stayed. He hovered taking phone shots of us. An NHSE comms woman appeared, shrugging her shoulders nervously and went between the meeting and the display, several times. The My Life My Choice minibus appeared with a gang of champs, solidly supportive as always.

It was a striking display of brilliance really. But weirdly, pretty much every employee who left Jubilee House during that hour, walked the long way round to avoid it. The couple of people who took the path we were lined up along studiously stared at the floor. Fran, love her, started to invite people to view the display ‘They won’t jump out at you..’, she said to a couple of retreating backs.

L1017079-2 Eventually, a few meeting attendees started to appear. Jan Fowler, from NHSE, and a commissioner came first, chatted with various people and with BBC Oxford. Then a few more attendees came and viewed the figures, took some photos and chatted. It was an odd experience really. Such intensity. Of horror and inhumanity, of colour and individuality, and of (some) avoidance. The meeting chair said ‘I will remember this’ as he left.

L1017125

As we were about to leave, and the gingers were safely packed in the car, one employee who’d avoided looking on his way out, came back and asked what it was all about.

Just lives, really. And chilling inhumanity.

L1017097-3

*There were so many more deaths than this, but here we focus on these.

Sloven briefings and bleatings

Posted on December 16, 2015 by sarasiobhan

Blimey. Sloven don’t half love a briefing. Their briefing to NHS England about the Mazars review found its way to us earlier this week. They commissioned an independent review into (specific bits of) the Mazars review of their own practices of responding to particular deaths. Paid for by public money.

To distract myself from debilitating incredulity, I googled ‘what (the fuck) is a ‘briefing?’ A briefing basically identifies a problem and offers a rationale for a solution. Not rocket science.

Sloven’s ‘briefings’ are pretty disturbing and flaky. The now infamous Background briefing on mother’s blog circulated the day after LB died. [Howl]. Still packing a punch spiked with scotch bonnet chillies and rusty nails over two years on. [He died… He drowned in a bath. In ‘specialist’ NHS provision…?] The problem: a publicly documented account of love, health and social care failures and worse. The solution? The briefing ‘may help in shaping a tailored media response to the incident’.

An erasure of LB as a person. And so much more.

Then there was the David Nicholson/Monitor briefing (March 2014). The problem: that bloody mother (again), pesky #JusticeforLB campaigners and social media high jinks causing reputational damage. The solution? Discredit, bleat and block.

This latest briefing. The problem: an independent [yep, independent] review uncovering scandalous findings and clear evidence of eugenic/dehumanising practices. The solution? Discredit the review.

Chris Hatton has written about the Sloven attempts to discredit the Mazars review here. This morning we flagged up that the helpline on Sloven’s website for families who may be affected by the review no longer existed. As ever, their energies and attention focused solely on their reputation. Families? Forget it.

A clunky and late revision of their statement eventually appeared later today:

NHS England continue to delay publication. Relentlessly. It’s looking likely it will be pushed beyond the closing of the House of Commons on Thursday as ‘it needs to be clear about its messages as possible’. Wow. Quite some jostling for the winner of the scumfuckery public sector bastard of the year award going on here.