NHS chief 'stopped from speaking on patient safety'

[kittyP]

Story here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21444058

Is this story more about back door privatisation?

In early 2010, Mr Walker was sacked as chief executive of the United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust on grounds of "gross professional misconduct" for allegedly swearing in a meeting.
He and former trust board members claim the real reason lay in his refusal to hit Whitehall targets for non-emergency patients.
Continue reading the main story“Start Quote

You have to remember that if you work in the NHS and you cross the people in power there will be consequences”​

Gary Walker
Mr Walker says demand for emergency hospital beds in 2008 and 2009 became so acute that he felt he had no other choice than to abandon the 18-week Whitehall target for non-emergency cases.

Are they hoping by refusing care or enforcing long waiting times for "non-emergency patients" (and lets face it, we don't know what "non-emergency" really means) that people will go private rather than wait and maybe die?

And yes, if they thought his dismissal was on fair grounds, why spend all that money on silencing him?

This all stinks

 

[kebabking]

Is this story more about back door privatisation?...

no, its about creating politically advantagous headlines whose forumalation had a negative effect on patient safety, and an NHS beauocracy that reacted very badly to being told that.

i think there's a couple of these people floating about, and if you think the then Sectetary of State for Health, one Andy Burnham MP, Lab Leigh, Greater Manchester, did not 'ok' the Strategic Health Autority's decision to dismiss him, then i fear you've another thing coming...

 

[brogdale]

Story here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-21444058

Is this story more about back door privatisation?




Are they hoping by refusing care or enforcing long waiting times for "non-emergency patients" (and lets face it, we don't know what "non-emergency" really means) that people will go private rather than wait and maybe die?

And yes, if they thought his dismissal was on fair grounds, why spend all that money on silencing him?

This all stinks

Yep; the continuing legacy of NuLab's culture of targets, managerialism, PFI and decentralised autonomy.

Interesting though that the tories now see it as politically convenient to suggest that gagging contracts will be made illegal. I wonder if that stance will apply to the whole public sector, or just the NHS? What about the private sector? Sounds very much like most tory reaction; back of a fag packet stuff.

 

[Louis MacNeice]

The whole gagging order approach is one driven by particular commercial notions of competition and confidentiality (so in that sense it is part of a privatisation agenda); they are inimical to the universalist founding principle of the NHS which should demand openness and sharing throughout the service.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

 

[kittyP]

no, its about creating politically advantagous headlines whose forumalation had a negative effect on patient safety, and an NHS beauocracy that reacted very badly to being told that.

i think there's a couple of these people floating about, and if you think the then Sectetary of State for Health, one Andy Burnham MP, Lab Leigh, Greater Manchester, did not 'ok' the Strategic Health Autority's decision to dismiss him, then i fear you've another thing coming...

I guess.

 

[brogdale]

The whole gagging order approach is one driven by particular commercial notions of competition and confidentiality (so in that sense it is part of a privatisation agenda); they are inimical to the universalist founding principle of the NHS which should demand openness and sharing throughout the service.

Cheers - Louis MacNeice

Quite.

Here's what Dorrell said this morning on R4...

The former health secretary Stephen Dorrell, chairs of the Commons health select committee, said the culture of gagging whistleblowers in the NHS was corrupt. "This has been going on for far, far too long and I don't think your word corrupt is too strong," he told Today.
"It is fundamentally wrong that within a service that uses public money to treat patients, that information about patient safety should be regarded as something that is negotiable whether people are accountable for it," he added. "We need to deliver a fundamental change in a culture which thinks this kind of practice is acceptable."
He said the committee would examine whether criminal sanctions were needed and would interview Nicholson and the health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, as part of an investigation into the Francis inquiry. But he played down the prospect of Walker being called to give evidence.

A bit of a pandora's box, methinks. If they were to legislate for the NHS, on the grounds of public interest, there'd be many more areas of the public and private sectors where similar claims of public interest against gagging would emerge.