Political Quarterly: NHS inquiries and investigations; an exemplar in peculiarity and assumption (June 2019)

Summary

There is little research focusing on how bereaved families experience NHS inquiries and investigations. Despite this gap, there is a consistent assumption that these processes provide families with catharsis.

Drawing on her personal experiences of NHS investigations over a five‐year period after the death of her son, Connor Sparrowhawk, the author suggests the assumption of catharsis is misplaced and works to erase the considerable emotional ‘accountability’ labour that families undertake during these processes.

She further question whether inquiries or investigations are an effective way of holding stakeholders to account. She concludes with two points: first, qualitative research is needed to better understand bereaved family experiences of inquiries and investigations and second, the ‘lessons learned’ objective underpinning inquiries should be replaced with ‘leading to demonstrable change’, which is what families typically want.