Government accused of downgrading NHS whistleblowers’ helpline
Photograph: Lindsey Parnaby
Margaret Hodge (Left) said: ‘At a time when we are learning how important whistleblowers are in ensuring the proper use of public money it seems wrong to effectively cut funding to a crucial adviser.
The government has been accused of downgrading the Department of Health’s helpline for whistleblowers exposing wrongdoing in hospitals.
A £160,000 contract to advise 1.3 million NHS staff with concerns about patient safety and fraud has been extended to include another 1.7 million people working in social care but with no increase in resources.
No help for doctor who refused to be gagged
Adam Gerrard/SWNS
Reprinted by kind permission of the Times newspaper.
Click Here for the original story on the Times website.
No help for doctor who refused to be gagged
Alexi Mostrous – special correspondent
The British Medical Association withdrew legal support from a whistleblowing doctor because he refused to sign a gagging clause,The Times has learnt.
Lawyers for the medical union told the doctor that such clauses were “standard” and warned him that they would no longer represent him unless he signed.
Hospitals Watchdog Faces Probe
Dec 11, 2011 11:31:30 PM
By Daniel Bentley, Press Association Political Correspondent
Health Secretary Andrew Lansley has ordered a review into the hospitals
regulator’s handling of criticism of its management.
Kay Sheldon, a member of the board of the under-fire Care Quality
Commission (CQC), has said she raised concerns about chief executive
Cynthia Bower, only for them to be dismissed.
She accused Ms Bower and CQC chairwoman Dame Jo Williams of putting
“reputation-management and personal survival” ahead of patients’ best
interests.
Read more >>
Nurse Negligence Claims More Costly
Dec 7, 2011 9:16:56 PM
By Press Association Reporter
Negligence claims brought against nurses are becoming more costly and
more serious, it was reported today.
Legal costs have trebled in the past five years, according to the
bimonthly journal Nursing in Practice (NiP).
The cost of legal action brought against the Royal College of Nursing’s
(RCN) practice nurse members rose by nearly GBP2 million last year to
reach around GBP5 million, NiP said.
Probe into abuse at St Nicholas Hospital in Gosforth
A MAJOR probe is under way into allegations of abuse at a psychiatric unit for some of Britain’s most troubled teenagers.
Several members of staff, a mixture of qualified nurses and support workers, have been suspended over the claims at the Roycroft Unit at St Nicholas’ Hospital in Gosforth, Newcastle.
Southwest Health Authority paid for Watkinson case
TRURO and Falmouth MP Sarah Newton is seeking renewed assurances that the payout to a sacked hospital chief executive has not come from local NHS funds.
Mrs Newton is calling for urgent talks with bosses at the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust (RCHT) after health campaigners claimed the total costs – believed to be in excess of £1 million – came out of the trust’s own budget.
C4 Covers more attacks on Whistleblowers
On 3rd October 2011, Channel 4 aired its Dispatches report GP care and the fate of whistle-blowers. Watch it here. News coverage here.
Suspended GP: I took on too much work
Source: The Oxford Mail
The doctor at the heart of a whistleblowing probe has admitted a delay in dealing with some paperwork could have impacted on a “small number of patients”.
Dr Mark Huckstep was suspended from his practice at Wolvercote Surgery and Kendall Crescent Health Centre, in North Oxford, in August 2010.
It came after concerns were raised about how the practice was run and the management of patient records.
The General Medical Council (GMC) launched an investigation and Dr Huckstep was not allowed to practice in Oxfordshire. Read more >>
NHS cannot allow a culture of cover-ups
Every day, as often highlighted by this newspaper, those working in the health service in Northern Ireland perform miracles of modern medicine.
They work under intense pressure and frequently with a lack of resources to provide the best possible care to the thousands of people who pass through hospitals, clinics and doctors’ surgeries. Their work is not just important, it is life-saving and we should be grateful for it.
Patients left at risk by watchdog’s focus on red tape
Patients have been left at risk as the country’s main health watchdog carried out 70 per cent fewer inspections in order to focus on bureaucracy, MPs say today.
he Care Quality Commission was guilty of a “significant distortion” in its priorities as it concentrated on red tape rather than checking that hospitals and care homes were safe, according to the Health Select Committee.