We have a system where accountability remains medical, while workforce substitution increasingly is not. NHS indemnity can settle claims, but it cannot answer who is responsible when a patient is inevitably harmed. There’s multiple tribunal hearings of a doctor, usually the resident on a fraction of the salary of their consultant, being held to account by the heavy-handed, racist-misogynistic GMC. This is not a benign process.
HE WARNED THEM IN 2014. POLICE ARRIVED IN 2023.
If you came in as an emergency at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton and you waited, or you were turned away, or someone you love did not get the care they needed in time, this is why.
The on-call surgeons were treating private patients instead.
A consultant neurosurgeon named James Akinwunmi saw it happening. He also saw colleagues fraudulently billing the NHS for pay they had no right to. He reported all of it.
Rather than act on his concerns, managers launched a disciplinary process against him.
False complaints were submitted to police alleging he had threatened colleagues.
Police took no further action. The trust never told him that.
They then accused him of unauthorised absence during an approved sabbatical and dismissed him in October 2014.
He took them to an employment tribunal. He won.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal upheld the unfair dismissal finding in 2017.
Then in December 2023, with a live police investigation already running at the hospital, the then-CEO of @UHSussex sent staff an email urging them to have the courage to raise concerns.
Akinwunmi told @guardian the email was laughable. He said whistleblowers including himself had done exactly what the email was encouraging and they were sacked for it.
Operation Bramber, launched by @sussex_police in June 2023, is now a criminal investigation covering over 200 cases of alleged surgical negligence at the same hospital.
More than 90 are being treated as possible manslaughter. The force had to request extra Home Office resources just to cope with the scale of it.
The Care Quality Commission separately downgraded @UHSussex from Outstanding to Requires Improvement. Inspectors found safety concerns had become normalised.
Sources: @guardian@BBCNews@MirrorOnline@sharmilaxx
بتهمة جمع الخضار والزهور البرية.
لحظة قيام الجيش الاسرائيلي بترويع واختطاف أطفال فلسطينيين لمكان مجهول
لولا وجود منصات مثل X لما وصلت هذه المشاهد للعالم
فضحهم واجب على كل حُر حول العالم.
Today, after 23 years as a consultant physician and nearly 35 years to the day after I qualified as a doctor, I left Glasgow Royal infirmary and work for the last time.
It’s been a privilege to be a clinician over that time and I leave with a huge sense of gratitude.
@TheSnoozeDoctor@DrJoFranklin Employ more medically qualified drs in GP, urgent care and A&e. Stop electronic triage system in GP so patients seen quicker by medically qualified dr. Have more district nurses to help when discharged . Eradicate PAs/ACPs/ANps/Paramedics acting as dr subs. Social care fix
This opens up a can of worms @NHSEngland
🔴Will poppies be banned?
🔴Will LGBTQ/Pride emblems be banned?
🔴Is a Palestinian flag with no text considered "political"?
🔴Why is a Palestinian flag considered to "anti Jewish hatred"? Is that idea not racist towards Palestinians?
🔴Will all flags, including Union Jack and St Georges Cross, be banned?
🔴Will Ukraine badges be banned?
🔴Will the Star of David be banned?
🔴Where is the line that constitutes what is "political" and what is not? Is a Keffiyah a political symbol?
🔴Can badges be worn on clothing on the way to and from work?
🔴If a Jewish person decides to wear a Palestine badge, is that Jewish person exhibiting "anti Jewish hatred"?
NHS BUILT A SECRET OPERATION AGAINST ITS OWN CEO FOR REPORTING BULLYING
Dr Susan Gilby spent 32 years in the NHS. She became CEO of the Countess of Chester Hospital in 2018, a month after Lucy Letby was arrested, and steered it through a pandemic. She then reported the board chair for bullying. That was her mistake, apparently.
Chair Ian Haythornthwaite and three other senior figures quietly launched what they called Project Countess. Its goal was to remove her.
They purged hundreds of messages and documents to cover their tracks.
One of the Trust's directors took her to the pub and told her it was time for her to go.
He added that if she didn't agree to leave, they would start a process against her. Nobody told her what that process would be.
A tribunal judge found the Trust had built a sham case against Dr Gilby, manufacturing the appearance of performance and misconduct allegations, aimed at engineering her dismissal.
Staff at the Trust then accessed her work accounts while she was suspended and deleted tranches of emails.
Some of those emails were relevant to the Thirlwall Inquiry into Lucy Letby's crimes.
She was also offered a payout in return for silence. She called it utterly shocking and refused.
She was eventually awarded £1.4 million in damages, one of the largest payments the NHS has ever made to a former employee.
The total bill to the taxpayer, including court costs, is estimated at around £3 million. The Trust had refused multiple offers to settle the case earlier.
The Trust still refused to issue an apology.
The @thebma called it a landmark case and said whistleblower protections are woefully inadequate and not fit for purpose.
Dr Gilby said she feels sad, not triumphant. Sad for her career. Sad for her colleagues. Sad that it took this long for the truth to be told.
She went on record warning that sham investigations are routinely used to silence NHS whistleblowers. The Countess of Chester case just put a £3 million price tag on that fact. And nobody in charge has said sorry.
Sources: @thebma@BBCNews@ITV
Larry and I were together yesterday on the launch of Power Shift, a new platform, getting into the specifics. Video later today - and I'm also working on a column detailing the timeline.
Yes, this is literally a bombshell.
https://t.co/1wEvSbuZFf
@lascapigliata8 The power balance may have shifted from the profession to the managers, there will be a battle to get it back. The BMA should instruct consultants and all doctors not to supervise ACPs and PAs, as they are unregulated, after getting litigation advice.
@ABCDiab How about starting by protecting your profession ? Push for the implementation of the Leng review . Make the interim guidance permanent. Tell the AP leaders to back off - they’re replacing Drs with nurses , physios and paramedics and this is unsafe . Where’s your backbone ?
In a nutshell?
Anyone can be a Consultant working in primary care
Apart from a General Practitioner.
Which is what happens when a College forgets what their basic role is
And individuals champion themselves rather than serve who they are supposed to lead
#TuesdayTruth
Me in full flight.
Talking about Acute and Emergency Medicine in the UK. And why it is a total mess. At the recent GoodEM Conference on flow in Sydney.
https://t.co/KPmsbXqcEg
This got paywalled so I can't re-check but it appears nurses and a paramedic decided a young woman with risk factors for a PE was "overreacting. No doctor appears to have been consulted about this decision. Another preventable death, due to quacks playing doctor in the NHS?
This is a long weekend of loss. Brendan O'Brien, pictured here in the left background, has passed away. I remember him on Today Tonight, the precursor to Prime Time. He wrote a lovely book for children entitled The Story of Ireland. I think he was on Newstalk for a while too. RIP