Medical records changed as hospitals cover up mistakes, watchdog warns

Hospitals are still covering up serious mistakes in patient care and fobbing off families that raise concerns, the head of the watchdog that investigates complaints against the NHS has warned.

Rob Behrens told The Times he had seen cases of medical records being changed after a death and spoken to doctors who were too scared to speak out about failings in their hospitals.

He called on ministers to change the law to introduce a “duty of candour” on health and other public service staff to “transform” the system and make it more accountable to patients.

He warned: “There is a deep reluctance to explain and give an account of what you do in the health service or the public service for fear of retribution. The things that really get to me are the avoidable deaths of babies in the health service — dying because there’s been poor coordination or they’d been wrongly diagnosed or the parents hadn’t been listened to. That is shocking.”

Read full story (paywalled)

Source: The Times. 6 March 2023