Ambulance trust covered up paramedics’ fatal errors like a ‘criminal gang’

An ambulance trust has been accused of acting like a “criminal gang” and lying to dead patients’ families by an employee who repeatedly warned about paramedics’ mistakes being covered up.

Paul Calvert, a coroner’s officer whose job was to produce reports on deaths, tried to raise concerns about managers at the North East Ambulance Service (NEAS) for three years before walking out last year on the verge of a breakdown.

“My life was being made a misery,” said Calvert, who was previously a detective with Northumbria police. “They were basically like a criminal gang. I had tried everything I could to warn the proper authorities about how the service was destroying and concealing evidence meant for the coroner. I spoke to my managers, to human resources, to external auditors. I even made disclosures to the Care Quality Commission and Northumbria police. Nothing was done about it.”

Despite their denials of a large-scale cover-up of mistakes, the NEAS this year offered Calvert £41,000 as part of a non-disclosure agreement it asked him to sign. One of the clauses meant destroying all the evidence he had collected. Another tried to stop him making any further disclosures to police.

Reports and witness statements from ambulance staff were not being disclosed to the coroner “on a daily basis”, according to Calvert, amounting to key pieces of evidence relating to deaths being hidden from the public.

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Source: The Times, 29 May 2022