Jump to content

Search the hub

Showing results for tags 'Whistleblowing'.

More search options

  • Search By Tags

    Start to type the tag you want to use, then select from the list.

  • Search By Author

Content Type


Forums

  • All
    • Commissioning, service provision and innovation in health and care
    • Coronavirus (COVID-19)
    • Culture
    • Improving patient safety
    • Investigations, risk management and legal issues
    • Leadership for patient safety
    • Organisations linked to patient safety (UK and beyond)
    • Patient engagement
    • Patient safety in health and care
    • Patient Safety Learning
    • Professionalising patient safety
    • Research, data and insight
    • Miscellaneous

Categories

  • Commissioning, service provision and innovation in health and care
    • Commissioning and funding patient safety
    • Digital health and care service provision
    • Health records and plans
    • Innovation programmes in health and care
    • Climate change/sustainability
  • Coronavirus (COVID-19)
    • Blogs
    • Data, research and statistics
    • Frontline insights during the pandemic
    • Good practice and useful resources
    • Guidance
    • Mental health
    • Exit strategies
    • Patient recovery
    • Questions around Government governance
  • Culture
    • Bullying and fear
    • Good practice
    • Occupational health and safety
    • Safety culture programmes
    • Second victim
    • Speak Up Guardians
    • Staff safety
    • Whistle blowing
  • Improving patient safety
    • Clinical governance and audits
    • Design for safety
    • Disasters averted/near misses
    • Equipment and facilities
    • Error traps
    • Health inequalities
    • Human factors (improving human performance in care delivery)
    • Improving systems of care
    • Implementation of improvements
    • International development and humanitarian
    • Safety stories
    • Stories from the front line
    • Workforce and resources
  • Investigations, risk management and legal issues
    • Investigations and complaints
    • Risk management and legal issues
  • Leadership for patient safety
    • Business case for patient safety
    • Boards
    • Clinical leadership
    • Exec teams
    • Inquiries
    • International reports
    • National/Governmental
    • Patient Safety Commissioner
    • Quality and safety reports
    • Techniques
    • Other
  • Organisations linked to patient safety (UK and beyond)
    • Government and ALB direction and guidance
    • International patient safety
    • Regulators and their regulations
  • Patient engagement
    • Consent and privacy
    • Harmed care patient pathways/post-incident pathways
    • How to engage for patient safety
    • Keeping patients safe
    • Patient-centred care
    • Patient Safety Partners
    • Patient stories
  • Patient safety in health and care
    • Care settings
    • Conditions
    • Diagnosis
    • High risk areas
    • Learning disabilities
    • Medication
    • Mental health
    • Men's health
    • Patient management
    • Social care
    • Transitions of care
    • Women's health
  • Patient Safety Learning
    • Patient Safety Learning campaigns
    • Patient Safety Learning documents
    • Patient Safety Standards
    • 2-minute Tuesdays
    • Patient Safety Learning Annual Conference 2019
    • Patient Safety Learning Annual Conference 2018
    • Patient Safety Learning Awards 2019
    • Patient Safety Learning Interviews
    • Patient Safety Learning webinars
  • Professionalising patient safety
    • Accreditation for patient safety
    • Competency framework
    • Medical students
    • Patient safety standards
    • Training & education
  • Research, data and insight
    • Data and insight
    • Research
  • Miscellaneous

News

  • News

Find results in...

Find results that contain...


Date Created

  • Start
    End

Last updated

  • Start
    End

Filter by number of...

Joined

  • Start

    End

Group

First name

Last name

Country

Join a private group (if appropriate)

About me

Organisation

Role

Found 317 results
  1. News Article
    Changes must be made across services at one of England's biggest NHS trusts following its first wide-ranging inspection, a health watchdog said. Mid and South Essex NHS Foundation Trust - which runs Basildon, Southend and Broomfield hospitals - has been rated as "requires improvement". The Care Quality Commission (CQC) turned up unannounced after concerns over standards were raised. Philippa Styles, the CQC's head of hospital inspection, said they "found a mixed picture" of positive improvements and areas of concern. "Following the trust's formation in 2020, leaders should now be able to work together effectively to ensure care is consistent across all services," she said. "I recognise the enormous pressure NHS services are under... and that usual expectations cannot always be maintained, especially in the urgent and emergency department, but it is important they do all they can to mitigate risks to patient safety." The report said: Patients had not always been protected from harm. Staff had not all received mandatory training. There had been nine "never-should-happen" medical events. Records were sometimes inaccurate and not kept securely. Nursing and medical staffing was a "challenge across the trust", with shifts regularly below planned staffing numbers. There had been a high number of whistle-blowers raising concerns. Read full story Source: BBC News, 1 December 2021
  2. Content Article
    The rapid review was commissioned by NHS England and NHS Improvement, following concerns raised by staff at The Christie Hospital in relation to the Research & Innovation department. The review makes a number of recommendations and the Trust will be developing and action plan to address these.
  3. News Article
    A doctor has accused England's health and care regulator of "moral corruption". Consultant orthopaedic surgeon Shyam Kumar says the Care Quality Commission misled the public over patient safety. Mr Kumar alleges he was unfairly dismissed from his role as a special adviser to the CQC because he acted as a whistleblower. His claims were made during an employment tribunal hearing in Manchester. Seconded by his employer, University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust, Mr Kumar had been giving the CQC expert advice on surgical departments during hospital inspections. But he was dismissed from this role, in early 2019. The CQC said a letter he had written to a colleague he had been in dispute with at his trust was incompatible with the standards expected of its special advisers. But Mr Kumar claims he was dismissed because, in 2018, he raised concerns with senior CQC figures that he was expected to simply rubber-stamp the final report following an under-resourced inspection. And he accused the regulator of sweeping his concerns under the carpet and providing false assurances on patient safety. Read full story Source: BBC News, 25 November 2021
  4. News Article
    A management coach and adviser to the Care Quality Commission has been appointed as the new ‘national guardian’ for the ’freedom to speak up’ programme. Jayne Chidgey-Clark will take up her new role on 1 December. The national guardian’s office leads, trains and supports the network of over 700 freedom to speak up guardians in England, as well as providing “challenge and learning to the healthcare system”. Ms Chidgey-Clark, a registered nurse, has served as a specialist adviser to the CQC since 2017. She has run her own coaching, consultancy and interim management business since 2009. She was a clincial adviser to NHS England’s new care models programme for three years until 2018 and the director of the end of life care modernisation project at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Foundation Trust between 2008 and 2011. Her appointment comes after Henrietta Hughes announced in June she was stepping down from the role after five years. Ms Chidgey-Clark, who is the third appointee to the position, said: “I feel excited and privileged to have been appointed as the new National Guardian for the NHS. I am passionate about, and committed to, making a real difference in people’s lives through the planning and delivery of the highest quality, effective care with excellent outcomes for people who use our health services, and their families.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 11 November 2021
  5. News Article
    Trusts are still spending at least £1m a year on settlement agreements with staff containing ‘gagging clauses’ despite a crackdown on these conditions in recent years, HSJ research reveals. Freedom of information responses reveal 214 settlement agreements with confidentiality conditions worth £4.6m across three years NDAs — which are also known as “confidentiality clauses” or “gagging clauses” and prevent parties to a settlement agreement from disclosing its details — also seem to be becoming less popular. HSJ’s FOIs revealed 119 settlement agreements with an NDA with a total value of £2.16m, in 2018-19. In 2019-20, this fell to 87 such agreements with a total value of £1.5m. In 2020-21, there were 41 settlement agreements with such a clause, with a total value of £1.04m. A source with knowledge of confidentiality agreements in the NHS said: “Following some high-profile whistleblowing cases a few years ago… NHS organisations have been far more cautious in imposing confidentiality obligations in settlement agreements.” Numerous health secretaries have issued warnings about NDAs potentially being used to silence staff. In 2019, former health and social care secretary Matt Hancock said: “Settlement agreements that infringe on an individual’s right to speak out for the benefit of patients are completely inappropriate.” In 2013, then health secretary Jeremy Hunt said he would ban clauses in compromise agreements — as settlement agreements were then known — preventing NHS staff from raising patient safety concerns. After the Mid Staffordshire report was published, he wrote to all trust chairs, asking them to review the confidentiality clauses they were using. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 1 November 2021
  6. News Article
    A whistleblowing letter sent by maternity staff to inspectors and a newspaper was "the right thing to do", the hospital's boss said. Midwives at West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St Edmunds said they were "exhausted and broken" and claimed the unit was "consistently short-staffed". The hospital had previously been criticised for its treatment of whistleblowers. Its interim chief executive Craig Black said the letter was a "brave thing". The anonymous letter was sent to the Bury Free Press, the Care Quality Commission (CQC) and the West Suffolk Foundation NHS Trust, in August. It claimed the midwives had spoken out because standards of care had fallen sharply. Staff were "under extreme pressures all the time, which has left them fed up, exhausted and burnt out", it said. Read full story Source: BBC News, 19 October 2021
  7. Content Article
    It's that time again. 'Speak Up Month' in the NHS. In this blog, I discuss the definition of 'whistelblowing' and why this is important. I believe that although the Francis Report has stimulated some positive changes, the only way to successfully move forward on this is to celebrate and promote genuine whistleblowers. This includes using the word 'whistleblowing', not a euphemism. It also needs us to involve everyone, including patients, in the changes. "Whistleblowing isn’t a problem to be solved or managed, it’s an opportunity to learn and improve. The more we move away for labelling and stereotyping the more we will learn. Regardless of our position, role or perceived status, we all need to address this much more openly and explicitly, in a spirit of truth and reconciliation." What is whistleblowing? "In the UK, NHS bodies have been guilty of muddying the waters. Sometimes implying that whistleblowers are people who fail to use the proper channels, or are troublemakers, especially when they go outside their organisation with their concerns. In fact, the Public Interest Disclosure Act makes no distinction between ‘internal’ and ‘external’ whistle-blowers..."
  8. News Article
    NHS Highland says it expects to pay £3.4m in settlements to current and former staff who have complained of bullying. Whistleblowers exposed a "culture of bullying" at NHS Highland in 2018. A Scottish government-commissioned review suggested hundreds of health workers may have experienced inappropriate behaviour. So far 150 cases have been settled since the start of a "healing process", costing the health board more than £2m. Whistleblower Brian Devlin told BBC Scotland the scale of settlements made so far was "heartening", but he added that he continued to have concerns about bullying at the health board. A group of Highlands GPs first complained of a culture of bullying at NHS Highland in September 2018. Staff said they had not felt valued, respected or supported in carrying out "very stressful work". Others told of not being listened to when raising matters regarding patient safety concerns and decisions being made "behind closed doors". The review also said that "many described a culture of fear and of protecting the organisation when issues are raised". Read full story Source: BBC News, 28 September 2021
  9. News Article
    A child safeguarding expert who faced vilification after raising concerns about the safety of children undergoing treatment at a London NHS gender identity clinic has won an employment tribunal case against the hospital trust. Sonia Appleby, 62, was awarded £20,000 after an employment tribunal ruled the NHS’s Tavistock and Portman trust’s treatment of her damaged her professional reputation and “prevented her from proper work on safeguarding”. Appleby, an experienced psychoanalytical psychotherapist, was responsible for protecting children at risk from maltreatment. The tribunal heard evidence she raised concerns about the treatment of increasing numbers of children being referred to the trust’s Gender Identity Development Service (Gids). The service in Hampstead has been at the heart of a controversy over its treatments, including the provision of drugs known as puberty blockers to children as young as 10. The tribunal heard evidence that after she raised the concerns, instead of addressing them, the trust management ostracised her and attempted to prevent her from carrying out her safeguarding role, by sidelining her. Appleby said the management’s action amounted to a “full-blown organisational assault”. Read full story Source: The Guardian, 4 September 2021
  10. Content Article
    When good people raise serious concerns employers can welcome them as gold dust, as "canaries in the mine" or do the opposite. This is an unfinished account of what happened when Karen Rai, Strategic Research & Innovation Manager at The Christie Hospital NHS Trust, wrote to the Trust Chair setting out concerns about governance, financial conduct, and bullying...
  11. Content Article
    This discussion paper, published in The Journal of Patient Safety and Risk Management, explores some of the opportunities which healthcare organisations could embrace to positively influence the effects of power and hierarchy on staff safety. The author concludes: "This exploration into how power and hierarchy influence both staff and patient safety has identified and briefly explored some of the tensions created by misplaced brand loyalty inherent within healthcare institutions, and the legacy of harms resulting."
  12. News Article
    The boss of a NHS trust that asked hospital staff for fingerprints and handwriting samples as it hunted a whistleblower is stepping down. Dr Stephen Dunn will leave West Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust in the summer after seven years as chief executive. An independent inquiry into the way management handled the affair is expected to report in the autumn. In 2018, Jon Warby received a letter two months after the death of his wife, Susan. It claimed mistakes were made during her bowel surgery. An inquest into her death was subsequently told how she had been given glucose instead of saline fluid via an arterial line. The Doctors' Association described the hospital's attempt to find the author of the letter a "witch-hunt". A subsequent Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspection said the way internal investigations had been conducted by the hospital was "unusual and of concern". Read full story Source: BBC News, 28 July 2021
  13. Content Article
    The Freedom to Speak Up (FTSU) Index is a key metric for organisations to monitor their speaking up culture. Measuring the effect of culture change can be difficult. The acid test is the view of workers. The NHS Annual Staff Survey can help to give some indication as to whether Freedom to Speak Up is embedded within Trusts detailing whether staff feel knowledgeable, encouraged and supported to raise concerns and if they agree they would be treated fairly if involved in an error, near miss or incident.
  14. News Article
    More needs to be done to bring maternity units at a city's two main hospitals up to scratch, inspectors have said. In 2020 the Care Quality Commission (CQC) found serious concerns at Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust and labelled the units "inadequate". A new report concluded the trust still has "some areas to address". In October a coroner said the death of Wynter Andrews minutes after she was born was "a clear and obvious case of neglect". Nottinghamshire assistant coroner Laurinda Bower also revealed a 2018 whistle-blowing letter from midwives to trust bosses outlining concerns over staffing levels as "the cause of a potential disaster". In the same month "in response to concerns raised... and coronial inquests", the CQC carried out an unannounced inspection at the hospital and found some staff had not completed training and "did not always understand how to keep women and babies safe", and issued a warning notice over its concerns. Its latest report, based on an inspection in April, found improvements in the way women at risk of deterioration were identified and found documentation and monitoring had improved. However the CQC found a disconnect between online and paper record-keeping and said there were multiple systems in place that led to duplication and errors at times. Read full story Source: BBC News, 28 May 2021
  15. News Article
    Doctors in Wales have faced bullying and disciplinary action for raising concerns over working conditions and safety, a union leader has said. Dr Phil Banfield, of BMA Wales, said doctors who complained about work, both before and during the Covid pandemic, were seen as "troublemakers". He said there are worries bullying among staff will get worse as longer post-Covid waiting lists are tackled. The Welsh government said bullying of NHS staff was "entirely unacceptable". Dr Banfield, who is chairman of the BMA Welsh consultants' committee, said staff have faced the prospect of being victimised by colleagues, or even being forced to leave the Welsh NHS, for raising concerns over bullying or health and safety. He said: "Staff are quite good at raising concerns, but they don't raise concerns if they're going get in trouble for it, or they sense nothing is going to happen. What happens is you think 'I can't be bothered'. "Decent people develop a kind of learned helplessness and it means that people who keep raising concerns stand out." Read full story Source: BBC News, 15 May 2021
  16. News Article
    Three private mental health hospitals have been placed in special measures after the Care Quality Commission found concerns over infection control. John Munroe Hospital and Edith Shaw Hospital, both in Staffordshire and run by the John Munroe Group, were inspected after the CQC received several whistleblowing complaints over poor covid-19 infection control and covid deaths. A third hospital, Priory Hospital Arnold, based in Nottinghamshire, was criticised over hygiene and infection control failures after the regulator found dried blood, faeces, food and sputum on seclusion room walls. In reports published this week, the CQC revealed it had placed all three hospitals in special measures and imposed urgent enforcement action against the providers. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 29 April 2021
  17. News Article
    NHS whistleblowers have required counselling and medication and a quarter would not raise concerns again due to the stress and lack of support, a report found. A review of existing policy at NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde found “concerning” evidence of a significant impact on the mental health of both whistleblowers and managers with little support provided. It found there was “no clear documented process” to highlight serious, urgent issues to the appropriate manager. Healthworkers’ union Unison said staff were often labelled ‘trouble-makers’ with senior managers "defensive from the outset". Sixty percent of staff reported that their mental health was negatively impacted by whistleblowing with some requiring counselling or medication to cope with the stress of disclosures. The report said it was of concern that a quarter of staff stated that they would not raise concerns such as unsafe clinical practices again given their experiences, a figure which it said was likely to be higher as this information was only recorded if it was volunteered by staff. Unison’s Regional Organiser Matt McLaughlin said, “Unison welcomes this paper and the Boards commitment to follow the updates national guidance. “However it will take more than a new policy for whistleblowers to feel valued within NHS GGC. The organisation is too defensive and staff who whistleblow often do so out of shear frustration that legitimate concerns are ignored – or worse, where the whistleblower is seen as a trouble maker. " "NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde needs to embrace and welcome staff speaking out; rather than being defensive from the outset." Read full story Source: The Herald, 28 April 2021
  18. News Article
    Allegations of staff assaulting patients at a mental health hospital have been uncovered for a second time, one year after the Care Quality Commission (CQC) first raised concerns over potential abuse at the unit. The regulator criticised Broomhill Hospital in Northampton in a report issued this week after inspectors found details of three alleged assaults by staff against patients. The unit is run by independent sector provider St Matthew’s Healthcare, but treats NHS patients. In May 2020, the CQC placed the hospital into special measures amid concerns it was failing to protect patients against abuse. Patients had raised concerns to inspectors over poor staff attitudes and made allegations that two had physically assaulted patients. A second inspection this year was triggered by further whistleblowing concerns from patients and staff. Following the most recent inspection, which took place this February, the CQC has again raised warnings about staff allegedly assaulting patients. The staff members involved in all three incidents were dismissed and the CQC has asked the provider to inform the police of one incident. According to the report: “Staff had not always treated patients with compassion and kindness… [or] been discreet, respectful, and responsive when caring for patients. Two patients told us that their experience in the hospital was ‘terrible’. Two different patients told us that they had observed staff shout at patients. Another patient described Broomhill as ‘the worst hospital they had been in’, adding that they were not happy with the care provided.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 22 April 2021
  19. News Article
    A nurse of the year finalist who faced being struck off after she saved a woman's life has been cleared by an official inquiry, the Mail can reveal. Leona Harris, 48, who gave a blood transfusion in a speeding ambulance to a woman who was haemorrhaging after losing her baby, has faced a four-year nightmare, including the potential loss of her 24-year career and home to pay legal costs. Through no fault of Mrs Harris's, the required prescription for the use of the blood had not been taken on to the ambulance with the patient. Now, four years on, the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) has concluded Mrs Harris 'undoubtedly acted in the best interests of the patient' and has 'no case to answer'. The ruling raises major concerns about the conduct of the East Lancashire Hospitals Trust, which used inexplicably altered statements about Mrs Harris's conduct. The 600-page report will heap new pressure on Health Secretary Matt Hancock, who pledged that 'eradicating the curse' of NHS bullying would be one of his 'top priorities'. Read full story Source: Mail Online, 20 April 2021
  20. News Article
    A ‘flurry’ of whistleblowers have raised concerns about the culture within an NHS trust which is grappling with finance and governance problems, its directors were told today. Staff at Cornwall Partnership Foundation Trust have reported a “command and control” culture at the trust, which last week apologised to its employees for overtime payments made to board members for extra hours worked during the first peak of the pandemic. It comes as the trust’s new chair and interim chief executive both pledged to communicate “openly and honestly” with staff. Read full story (paywalled) Source HSJ, 12 April 2021
  21. News Article
    An acute trust is reviewing thousands of gastroenterology cases for possible patient harm, after details emerged of an ‘extremely concerning’ list of patients who have not had follow-up appointments for up to six years since being treated. HSJ understands major concerns have been raised internally at Liverpool University Hospital Foundation Trust, over 9,500 patients who received treatment at Aintree University Hospital as far back as 2015, but have not had a follow-up appointment. Whistleblowers have also contacted the Care Quality Commission, which has confirmed it is looking into the issues. Well-placed sources said around 7,000 of the cases have “target dates” for an outpatient follow-up that are in the past. Around 20 of these cases were supposed to be seen in 2015 or 2016, with around 400 dating back to 2017, and around 900 to 2018, the sources said. The remaining 2,500 cases either have no target date or have not yet had a follow-up appointment booked. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 8 April 2021
  22. News Article
    Former staff at a Midlands acute trust have raised concerns over a ‘toxic management culture’ and ‘unsafe’ staffing levels within its maternity services, HSJ has learned. Two clinicians who recently worked within Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospital Trust’s maternity department have sent a letter to the Care Quality Commission outlining a series of concerns. The letter, seen by HSJ, claimed there was a “toxic management culture alongside poor leadership” within the trust’s senior midwifery team. It added: “This had led to 100 per cent turnover in staff within the middle management line… There is no confidence in the current leadership structure and no confidence that staff will be listened to and heard.” HSJ also understands there are also concerns around the service within the trust’s management. Although they do not raise direct patient safety concerns, the clinicians said the problems were “mostly long-standing” and had “deteriorated to the point where there is now a risk to patient safety”. They added: “We are raising these concerns now with the CQC as we feel we have not been listened to and changed effected in a timely manner.” Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 10 March 2021
  23. News Article
    A long-delayed review into West Suffolk Foundation Trust board members’ alleged bullying of whistleblowers is now due to be published ‘by the spring’, senior figures familiar with the process have told HSJ. The news comes amid calls from senior medics and a campaign group for the review — originally due for publication in April 2020 — to be published as soon as possible. The review was set up to investigate the “handling and circumstances surrounding concerns raised in a letter that was sent in October 2018, to the relative of a patient who had died in the Suffolk hospital”. The letter was sent to the family of Susan Warby, 57, who died at West Suffolk Hospital in August 2018 after suffering multi-organ failure and other complications. The letter’s anonymous author raised serious concerns about her treatment by the trust. The trust launched an investigation, involving fingerprinting and handwriting experts, to find the letter’s author. The process, led by the trust’s senior management, prompted staff to report they felt harassed and bullied, and unions to label the process a “witch hunt” (See box below: Timeline of West Suffolk bullying allegations). NHS England and Improvement is overseeing the probe, which was ordered by ministers in January 2020. The coronavirus pandemic caused publication to be pushed back until December, but no official reasons have been given for the further delay. Read full story (paywalled) Source: 9 March 2021
  24. News Article
    A children’s nurse who raised legitimate concerns over racial discrimination at a major London trust was suspended and victimised by her managers for doing so, an employment tribunal has ruled. Jeyran Panahian-Jand, who worked on a children’s ward at Whipps Cross Hospital, parts of Barts Health Trust, had raised concerns with her manager in 2019 that staff were divided on “racial lines”, with an “unfair allocation of work”, as well as bullying of two junior staff. Her manager Heather Roberts, as well as other superiors, told Ms Panahian-Jand she should raise a formal complaint, without offering to look at the issues raised and keep the complaint informal, which the tribunal said they should have done under whistleblowing policies. Ms Roberts later accused Ms Panahian-Jand, who identified as white, of continuing to talk about her allegations on the ward, and with the agreement of Ghislaine Stephenson, the associate director of nursing for children, Ms Panahian-Jand was suspended for the “disruption” and “upset” she was causing, the tribunal judgment said. Ms Panahnian-Jand then lodged a formal complaint over race discrimination, as well as accusing two other bank nurses of making “racially abusive” remarks. A subsequent internal investigation supported three allegations of race discrimination made by Ms Panahian-Jand, while a separate probe into her own alleged misconduct found there was no case to answer. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 23 February 2021
  25. News Article
    Staff at a Midlands hospital trust told regulators they had repeatedly raised safety concerns internally without action being taken. The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has downgraded maternity services at Worcestershire Acute Hospital from “good” to “requires improvement” following an inspection prompted by the whistleblowers’ concerns. Staff had reported “continuously escalating” staffing level concerns to senior managers, but said they got “no response”. Some said they were fearful of raising concerns internally. Whistleblowers also reported delays to induction of labour, with examples of women waiting up to a week to be induced instead of one to two days. Managers said women who suffered delays were risk assessed. The CQC also identified a risk women might not be informed of significant harm caused to them or their babies following an incident, due to the way the trust was grading some babies who were admitted to the neonatal unit. However, it added: “When things went wrong, staff apologised and gave patients honest information and suitable support.” The report added the trust’s leaders were aware of the challenges in maternity, but “timely” action was not always taken to address the concerns. Read full story (paywalled) Source: HSJ, 19 February 2021
×
×
  • Create New...