Pulse recently featured a piece that details the objections by the medical profession to the GMC's attempts to regulate the private lives of doctors.
Firstly, given our experience, it is important for the GMC to regulate all aspects of a doctor's private life. Indeed, it was with this intention that the GMC decided to change the terms " Serious Professional Misconduct" to "Misconduct". The case law supports this. Collins J in R v GMC Ex Parte Pal was very clear - anything that goes to the integrity of the doctor must be investigated through Stream 1. The medical profession kept quiet during this case law and now it appears to be haunting them. The bottomline is this - it is too late for the GMC to go back unless it wishes to change "misconduct" to "SPM" again. According to their internal discussions, "misconduct" was invented to give the GMC powers to assess "all types of conduct". The result of course is this - any conduct deemed to "go to the integrity of the doctor" [ and remind yourselves that this is a subjective assessment] can amount to misconduct and can be investigated by the General Medical Council.
Secondly, for all those who wish to contribute to the GMC's consultation, visit this website . The case law is now set, the directives are all there. It is too late for any doctor to challenge the GMC's ability to infiltrate their private lives.
NHS Reform group has seen correspondence between Peter Bottomley and Dr Rita Pal. Indeed, we were not impressed with Mr Bottomley's blustering emails. Today, circulating around the blogsphere is Henry North's Post entitled Peter Bottomley's Scandalous EDM.
In the past, we have reported on the lifting of ideas. It has happened to NHS Reform repeatedly. Nevertheless, it appears to have happened to Dr Pal, an evidence based NHS Whistleblower. Peter Bottomley appears to have attacked Dr Pal through his emails in many ways. His associates appear to have threatened her as well. Undeterred, Dr Pal has discussed the evidence behind her concerns on her blog http://www.edm2031.blogspot.com . It appears obvious that Dr Pal's ideas appear to have been lifted. Of course, Peter Bottomley and associates seem to think that merely because they rotate in a higher sphere they can resort to this kind of behaviour. The tax payer pays Mr Bottomley's salary.
Who said the word "Henchmen"
We ask the question, given Mr Bottomley's unreasonable behaviour towards a whistleblower - does he support real whistleblowers, or does he merely run with whatever is popular during that full moon? That is a question. We certainly know this - Mr Bottomley voted for Iraq. Enuff said.
We understand the MPs who have blindly voted for this EDM. The public pay their salary as well. We expected better.
Niall Dickson, head poncho of the General Medical Council was interviewed recently by the intrepid Pulse journalists. Pulse is reputed to have the best coverage of GMC material this side of the United Kingdom. Dickson decided to convince the medical world of revalidation, praying with your patients if you are Jedi Knight and Sex. In the days of Finlay Scott, the organisation rocked with rabid meanness, now it simply rocks with incompetence and GMC supremacy. Dickson has not told members of the profession that their data is at risk. The Information Commissioner has a list of cases with findings against the GMC. He has not told the profession that they can be investigated without being informed of it. Revalidation of course is the GMC's excuse of shoving the blame of Harold Shipman onto good doctors. As history shows us, the GMC were solely responsible for the catastrophe that took place in Hyde. Anyhow, we present Niall Dickson, head poncho of the Witch Finder General. Lets bow to his supreme highness..... and then say the words "Jane Barton" loudly.
The Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine has attempted to move the medical profession forward. They have recently published a paper developed by a number of leading NHS Whistleblowers. The paper is available for download here.
Whistleblowing has been a complex issue for the government. Even though Andrew Lansley has tried to instigate consultations, the slightly odd situation is that no one has offered to speak to the whistleblowers. Few whistleblowers were asked to the Mid Staffordshire Inquiry. Indeed, any concerns raised by whistleblowers are often dismissed.
The paper discusses serious problems with the current culture of medicine as well as difficulties with the regulatory bodies. Its recommendations are as follows
“Our recommendations are firstly that the profession, through the GMC or BMA Council, should commission a Consultation Group on Reporting Poor Care. This Group will examine the consequences to all parties from incidents of reported poor care. Second, the Government should consider establishing a Health Select Committee Review of Whistleblowing that would make impartial recommendations to Government and the profession. Third, the Government should consider setting up and resourcing a National Whistleblowing Centre similar to that in the US. We believe that only by open public scrutiny will constructive change be cemented into exemplary clinical practice”
Professor Bolsin asks the question
”The question that individual medical professionals must answer is ‘Which doctor would you prefer for your relatives or yourself? A doctor that is prepared to report poor care to improve your, or your relatives outcome, or one that is not prepared to do so regardless of the consequences to your relative or yourself?’ When the profession can truthfully answer that question they will be able to put in place the necessary structures for change. The people who deserve this most are our longsuffering patients”
The recommendations have been considered by Stephen Dorrell, Chairman to the Health Select Committee.He told the Independent, he was thinking about an Inquiry into whistleblowing, a suggestion put to him by Andrew Mitchell MP in 2009.
The Independent also commented on the above paper discussion an American style solution of a National Whistleblowing Centre.
So far, the media have [ apart from the Independent] have been reluctant to mention the existence of this paper. Of course, if you search for the paper on the internet, it is everywhere.
It is potentially as if the whistleblowers are effectively silenced by the media and refuse to allow the public access to the solutions presented by doctors. The Health Select Committee recently made recommendations contrary to that of the paper - namely that doctors should be penalised for not raising concerns. The authors argue that the terrain is currently unsafe and the GMC's position is uncertain on the subject of whistleblowing. We are informed that the GMC has been asked for a Whistleblower's Consultation to determine the changes required at the GMC.
Recently, Parliament released a glossy video outlining the function of Select Committees. We thought we would present it above. Our experience of the Health Select Committee has been interesting. We felt that the correspondence between us and the ever elusive Stephen Dorrell was rather fascinating.
We are of the view that the "select committee" are unable to select a broad range of witnesses, preferring instead to cherry pick their favourites. This leads to biased reports and a failure in the system that Parliament. The Health Select Committee has failed to scrutinise appropriately preferring a glossed approach.
For years, the Health Select Committee was ruled by Kevin Barron MP. So a Labour government had a Labour MP as Chair. Having refused a Inquiry into Whistleblowing in 2009, Barron can be found asking for an Inquiry in a EDM not far away. No doubt he is swept by the basis of public policy - a comic book called Private Eye.
Now, the ruling Coalition Government has a Conservative MP as Chair. We wonder how a chairman will wish to hold his own party to account. Dorrell is less than transparent about the manner in which the Select Committee "works". We asked him a few searching questions and as usual he evaded these. The audience should note that sometime ago, the Health Select Committee dismissed a large volume of evidence sent from our numerous members. Having done so, the Health Select Committee copies our idea of an Inquiry into Complaints and Litigation and one on Whistleblowing without acknowledgement. Prior to submission to these inquiries, everyone should pay heed to this phenomena.
So far the Inquiries concerning health have been based on the "selective" cherry picked witnesses leaving large proportions of members of the public without a voice. Indeed, there is no logic or rationale on how witnesses are chosen.
28th January 2011.
Dear Sir,
I was advised this week that the Health Select Committee refused to invite NHS Reform and its members in an inquiry concerning NHS Complaints. No reason was given for this. The "selective" approach by the Health Select Committee has been a trait everyone has noticed. For instance, no whistleblower eg Stephen Bolsin et al was invited to the Patient Safety Inquiry sometime ago. Comments on whistleblowing were made by a non whistleblower.
We would therefore like your responses to the following :- [ referring to the most recent inquiry into NHS Complaints].
1. Do you believe that the Health Select Committee should investigate issues related to the health service "independently"?
2. If your answer to [1] is "yes", please outline how your position as Chair and your membership with the Conservative Party will ensure independent scrutiny of the current government and the effectiveness of its health policy.
3. Please provide the policy, procedure and methodology on how witnesses are selected for the HSC.
4. How many members of the following groups do you have as witnesses
a. Number of caucasian vs ethnic individuals
b. Number of disabled individuals
c. Number of individuals who are elderly.
d. Number of individuals who have suffered mental illness.
5. I would be grateful for your Equality and Diversity Policy. Please explain how this equality policy is operational during the selection of these witnesses.
6. Please provide a succinct reason why NHS Reform was not invited to the Inquiry.
7. Please declare all the interests/financial or otherwise of the current Committee members.
8. Please outline how your current "selection" of witnesses is representative of the UK population?
9. How do you believe the Health Select Committee reports have improved the NHS or healthcare for the public. At present, litigation is at its highest, medical error rates are escalating and mortality rates are probably at its worst.
10. Who is the Health Select Committee and its members accountable to? What is the line of accountability?
11. How is the performance of the HSC reviewed and improved?
Thankyou for taking the time to respond to these questions.
Regards
Please remember that the above are basic questions that should be answered by any select committee. The response sent to our colleague was this.
1st March 2011
The main issue that you raise is what you describe as the Committee’s refusal to invite NHS Reform to give evidence. The Committee has not refused to issue such an invitation. It chose groups to give oral evidence on 1 February from amongst those who had submitted written evidence, which NHS Reform has not done so far. If it wishes to submit a memorandum now we would be happy to consider it.
Stephen Dorrell
So we persisted......................
1st March 2011
Dear Mr Dorrell,
Thankyou for your recent correspondence.
Firstly, I am aware that ample evidence was submitted by NHS Reform. This was dismissed by yourselves. Nevertheless, this issue was not only reason for my list of questions. I am investigating the manner in which the Health Select Committee functions.
You state "The main issue that you raise is what you describe as the Committee’s refusal to invite NHS Reform to give evidence". Once again, I would like you to respond to the questions below referring to the numbering I have outlined. The questions asked relate to your Committee's compliance with Equality Legislation. Indeed, if the Committee was compliant, you would have no need to wrongfully abbreviate my request. I am sure your Oxford education equips you well in the talents of responding to questions asked.
I would be grateful if you would kindly respond to the questions put to you. I look forward to your responses. For your convenience, I enclose the original email in Appendix 1.
Mr Dorrell remained silent. We believe his silence demonstrates that there is no accountability of Select Committees. The very nature of having chairman from the ruling parties makes the accountability even more extinct. In the event, the Health Select Committee is prepared to respond meaningfully to the legitimate questions of transparency and accountability asked of it, please feel free to email us.
The Daily Mail as well as other media outlets talk about the "poisoner on the wards". Here is the Daily Mail's production this morning.
Of course, the questions are as follows
1. Why isn't Greater Manchester Police just shutting down the hospital until they discover and convict the person responsible. It is true they have accosted one person. Have they got it right?
2. Have the Greater Manchester Police checked the mortality rate of each ward in the hospital? Are there more than one poisoner?
Anyhow, many would say it is impractical to shut a hospital down. The interesting thing is this - the government has got around shutting many hospitals down permanently. For the safety of the general public, why isn't the safest option being taken? Surely that would be the most sensible thing to do under the circumstances. In each case relating to serial killers, no one has known the actual number of lives they have taken. In Shipman's case, the numbers were approximated.
A land mark legal challenge to prevent the unit closure of the Royal Brompton Hospital has hit the news. The local paper has quoted the leading health campaigner accusing the NHS of " Rigged Consultations".
This is what he said
"But chairman of campaign group Health Emergency Geoff Martin warned that flawed consultations were nothing new when saving money is concerned and predicted many more on the horizon as hospitals strive to keep up with the funding squeeze being imposed by the coalition.He said: "The culture of rigged consultations in the NHS is endemic and the scandal at the Royal Brompton is only the tip of a very large iceberg.
"We have seen consultations in the past where public opposition to cuts and closures has been almost unanimous and yet those words have been ignored and cuts bulldozed through, making a mockery of the entire consultation process."With more heavy-duty cuts in the NHS coming down the pipeline we can expect more of these bogus consultations off the back of Royal Brompton and we have to make sure that every single one of them is challenged."
Our experience of "rigged" consultations is as follows - NHS Reform has long challenged the inquiry process at the Health Select Committee. The Inquiry was accused by us of being "selective" so that the findings would also be "selective". We have witnessed the exclusion of numerous grass roots campaign groups from these consultations. Stephen Dorrell was sent a number of questions to outline who he plans on making these consultation processes more fair. So far he has failed to respond to our questions. It should be noted that in the recent Complaints Inquiry - an NHS Reform idea lifted by the Coalition Government without crediting us, refused to ask the Gosport Campaigners and Mr Will Powell of NHS Justice Group to give evidence. We ask why is this being done by NHS Consultations and Inquiries.
It follows that each consultation process conducted by the Health Select Committee have been based on interviews with the famous. The HSC has failed to interview the grass roots campaign community or members of the public. We wonder if this is the reason why proper recommendations are not being made to improve the NHS.
The issue was first brought to our attention by the excellent if not debonair - Dr Focal Spot in his post on Citizen Juries. This post is worth a read.
Phil Hammond is known throughout the UK as the over 50s sex symbol and all around good egg. The problem with Phil is that he appears to believe that his role as journalist is separate from his role as a doctor governed by Good Medical Practice. As the judgment in R v GMC Ex Parte Pal detailed, the role of a journalist and doctor is not separated, indeed it is intertwined. Having failed to pay attention to this, Phil has come under the scrutiny of many people. We ask ourselves why?
1. The Excellent Quackometer pointed out as follows. The entire post is in the link here.
"What puzzles me is why some apparently rational people appear to support the College [of Medicine]. The Private Eye columnist and rather-sensible-on-most-matters doctor, Phil Hammond, chaired the conference. I asked him on twitter if he was happy to support a conference sponsored by Nelsons which make teething granules for babies that are indistinguishable from fraud - they are homeopathic and contain nothing. They dupe parents into thinking they are doing something for a distressed baby. Hammond failed to address this directly - he said placebos should be labelled as placebos. I agree, but that does not change the fact that Nelsons do not label their products as such and are therefore straightforwardly deceptive. He finished by asking me if I am coming "along to debate, like I suggested, or just letting your head explode from the side-lines."
2. He appears to be Vice President to the Patients Association. This makes him liable for the works of the Charities Executive Committee. As everyone knows, Charities cannot challenge the government by virtue of Charity Law. All this may appear innocent to the world out there but then we observe the links the Patients Association [ with Phil Hammond have]. He also hung around the Patients Association with Sandy Macara, arch freemason an BMA head honcho. In addition, PA has a high flying member of Common Purpose - Helena Kennedy.
We then observe the guidance from the General Medical Council's Conflict of Interest section. In all Phil's written work, he makes no such declaration. Indeed, on his website, he makes no such statement either. Of course, no one comments on this because he is afterall Phil Hammond.
3. Hammond stayed quiet while the Patients Association's statistics were shown to be -errr inaccurate?! Channel 4 kindly did the sums for us. Of the claim made by PA, they concluded
"It is undeniable that the Patients Association have countless examples of poor care received by patients on the NHS. It is doubtless a vitally important issue. But it is interesting to note that the "over 1m" patients estimate is much larger than the actual 1,500 patients a year saying the care they had received was poor"
We again, ask Phil to refer to the General Medical Council guidance on accuracy and providing the public with accurate information.
4. Recently, Hammond has teamed up with Mr Wig Spin himself - Andrew Bousfield. Hammond and Bousfield decided to write a Whistleblower supplement. What they did not do adequately was check out the facts. They then decided to set up a lucrative website called Medical Harm. This purports to support patients but does it really do this? It is well known that the Patients Association refused to support the leading case that invented the Duty of Candour - that of Robbie Powell.
a. Hammond had failed to declare that Bousfield had been sanctioned by the Bar Standards Board. We found the judgment here. It stated
"Andrew Bousfield between 28 October 2007 and 23 February 2008 held himself out or allowed himself to be held out as a barrister, pursuant to paragraph 201 of the Bar’s Code of Conduct, in correspondence with MJ solicitors dated 29 October 2007, undated but around 6 November 2007 and 14 November 2007, for the purposes of supplying legal services to a member of the public, namely P, without having complied with the practising requirements in paragraphs 202(a) to 202(d) of the Bar’s Code of Conduct which by virtue of its nature, degree, repetition and/or combination with the matters set out in charge 2 was so serious as to be likely to bring the Bar into disrepute"
Hammond also failed to disclose the following. Bousfield had taken his journalist mask off and put his wig back on for the case of Ian Grieve. Grieve of course, isn't seeing what is in front of him but the judges did. They threw them out of court with a £10K bill.
"The judgement said the "brief and, in our view, scandalous" involvement of Mr Bousfield corroborated the conduct of the claimant as "vexatious, scandalous or otherwise unreasonable".It added: "While the actions of Mr Bousfield are clearly open to very serious criticism, we do not accept that a claimant whose prime interest was to have a fair hearing of an unfair dismissal claim would be prepared to be caught up in the personal crusade of an outsider who seemed interested only in hijacking the proceedings for his own purpose. It seems to us more probable that the claimant was happy to be party to that crusade which, in our judgement, renders the conduct of these proceedings at best unreasonable and at worst vexatious and scandalous."
5. On the discovery of the above and the fact that Dr Hammond had hailed a allegedly bullying consultant as a whistleblower, Dr Pal packed her bags and left the Private Eye building. Her detailed account of the risk Hammond had placed her under is detailed here. Dr Pal found Phil and his wig in toe, dealing with Dr Anders Skarsten, a man with a 5 year warning by the GMC. On discovering this, it is alleged that Hammond apologised to Dr Pal. Dr Pal apparently believes that the matter would never have arisen if the two journalists had done their job and rapidly cracked her friendship with Hammond and went off into the sunset. Most individuals have read this issue as sour grapes but there are far more important issues at play - why have the two journalists been merging conflicting data without any concern about who or what is affected. Is this what will happen with patients and trusts, patients an the doctors they have a conflict with, doctors an their employers. Is a whistleblower safe with Medical Harm?
6. According to recent rumours on Twitter, Dr Pal has accused Dr Hammond and Mr Bousfield of stealing the ideas developed in Whistleblowing and Patient Safety to be used by Peter Bottomley MP in Parliament. We have established that Peter Bottomley has indeed listed an EDM and the recommendations are startlingly similar if not the same as Bolsin et al's paper. We are yet to hear the details of this event.
In summary, Dr Hammond is currently in company with a sanctioned barrister, is part of the same organisation as the largest Freemason in medical history and attends meetings with a leader in Common Purpose. Fascinating..... Perhaps in the public eye Phil is judged by the company he keeps.
One of our main campaigns is to protect the elderly. Today's Telegraph newspapers carries a feature on elderly neglect in Care Homes. The continual denial by the population in the United Kingdom leads us all to believe that it has now become government policy to ignore problems faced by the elderly. Each year, we have seen report after report of elderly neglect. Over the last twenty years these reports have not improved. Today, the Telegraph states
""The report was compiled by charities Age UK and The Health Foundation following research showing that every day, seven out of ten care home residents are victims of drug errors, with elderly people being given the wrong medication, missing doses, and not being monitored for side effects"
It appears that over the years, stories have come and gone, elderly abuse in care homes and other institutions have continued. The government again has pseudo-intellectualised the issue, issued reports and shut the book. What they have not done is solved the problem by policing these institutions adequately. It shows that in the end, the government believes that having a policy that actively encourages neglect and therefore pre-mature death is economical to the public purse. This may not be an obvious announcement but nevertheless, it is a covert aim. At least, that is why their inactions speak louder than their press releases.
So if your reading this and if your elderly relative is the next one to die of neglect - ask yourself why you read this article and did nothing to fight for elderly rights in this country. Ask yourselves why our elderly even bothered to fight in the war so that we could be free. Were we even worth fighting for if we are unable to protect them in their old age?
The news of the day is that there have been copycat killings at Stepping Hill Hospital. We warned the government of the lack of preventative measures sometime ago. Dr Foster Intelligence admitted that their statistics are not enough to detect another Harold Shipman. This follows that despite the NHS having one serial killer after another, its policy makers have remained with their head in the sand.
The diamorphine killers was an article presented in Hospital Doctor sometime ago. It discusses the prevalence of serial killers within the NHS. Of course, the Stepping Hill killings are similar to Beverley Allitt. The surprising thing is that Greater Manchester Police has been investigating. Greater Manchester Police will be used to such serial killers since they failed to prosecute Harold Shipman until it was too late. Shipman Police Blunders by the Telegraph details this.
Anyhow, Greater Manchester Police struggle to grapple with the recent spate of deaths, few understand that the key to prevention of serial killers is to have better procedures of monitoring and far more accountability. If Dr Foster Intelligence cannot detect Dr Shipman [ as admitted by Professor Brian Jarman], what is the NHS doing to ensure early detection. Of course, a infamous case to illustrate this point is the case of Dr Jane Barton. No one has held her accountable for the premature end to many lives. Watch this report on Jane Barton.
Ken has been known to us for sometime. In the beginning we felt that we should all work together. As time went on we found out that Ken was not quite all he was advertised to be. Ken his famous for his role in Cure the NHS. The problem with Ken is that he likes to jump on the bandwagon of publicity. With the power of publicity this man has, we would think that he would do something for the welfare of patient kind. Sometime ago, we discussed Duty of Candour with him. This duty is credited to Will Powell of NHS Justice. No one else can be credited for sacrificing so much for the principle of the truth. Ken refused to support a legal duty of Candour initially and we have the emails to prove it. He stamped his feet, waved his hands, prattled on about whatever he prattles on about but refused to support a legal duty of candour.
We therefore found it fascinating that he did a U turn as soon as the government felt it was a good idea. Here is Ken supporting a Duty of Candour in the BMJ. The reporter failed to interview Will Powell but instead quoted Ken Lownds. Ken associates with Private Eye's Andrew Bousfield, a barrister sanctioned by the Bar Standards Board and their friend Phil Hammond [Patients Association]. The three stooges are indeed leading the way in patient safety.
Anyhow, while Ken and his team were playing volleyball and being a media diva, NHS Reform were doing some hard work. The Whistleblowing Inquiry and NHS Complaints Inquiry by the Health Select Committee were infact ideas we had initially submitted to the Andrew Lansley's PA. These were essentially taken up by the government. We will be back for more takes from the campaign trail.
Miguel Cubells, the man from up north leads the way into the future with NHS Reform.............. His key to the system change is to stay truthful to your principles, eat as many pies as you need and do the best you can to protect vulnerable members of the public.
Welcome to our blog. Our website can be accessed here. We are a grass roots campaign group that believes in improving the National Health Services so that it serves vulnerable members of the public to the highest standard possible. We aim to provide useful information to patients and relatives. We also aim to highlight the important issues that members of the public should be aware of.
