Trust focused on ‘reputation’ failed to address patient harms

A focus on “reputation management” was a factor in how an acute trust failed to properly investigate serious safety concerns in a dysfunctional department where consultants were “divided along ethnic lines”.

An external review into the urology services at University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay Foundation Trust has identified 520 cases where patients suffered “actual or potential harm”, including several cases where patients died.

The review, commissioned by NHS England, has found there were “multiple individual, team, organisational, and regulatory shortfalls which have resulted in a systemic failure to deliver good urological care at all times”.

Much of the report focuses on the trust’s failure to properly investigate concerns being raised, and to sort out poor relationships within the department which dated back 20 years.

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Source: HSJ, 24 November 2021