When they shut down the Healthcare Commission, this family encountered utter confusion over who to turn to. We weren't sure where to turn or what was happening. Neither was anyone else.
We were still writing to Anna Walker when we got this -
What will happen...?
"Will we have to start the process all over again on or after April 1st 2009?
"No you won't. The Care Quality Commission will continue the work of the three existing commissions. The Care Quality Commission will continue with the process as though no change had taken place. From 1st April 2009 you will simply begin to receive letters or information from the Care Quality Commission."
We may even be speaking to the same people we were speaking to before...
What a load of...
They chose the right day. April the first, April Fools Day! This whole tier of the complaints process was cut. Gotten rid of. Kaput!
Streamlined, they called it. Our complaint was shoved off into archive somewhere and we had the devil of a job to get the PHSO to take it up.
When is 'news' news? Is it still news when, actually, it's 'olds'?
The Care Quality Commission are accused of a cover-up -
Regulators deleted the review of their failure to act on concerns about University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Trust, where police are investigating the deaths of at least eight mothers and babies. There have been accusations that midwives colluded to hide errors. The trust, which faces at least 30 civil negligence claims, will also be subject to an independent inquiry in public.
We contacted the CQC again in May 2011.
We were in contact with Huw Jenkins, a CQC Inspector. We wanted the CQC to investigate the LCP scandal. He said funding was limited and the major CQC interest at that time was the elderly. Which is why, I suppose, they failed to pursue the scandal of infant deaths! But his comment of limited funding from the powers that be is worthy of note as indicative of the importance, in their estimation, of regulatory bodies such as the CQC!
He eventually undertook a visit to the hospital where my mother's life was taken. I suppose we should be grateful that, at least, he took us seriously enough to do that. But the manner of the visit could not have hoped to achieve much, if anything, and it didn't.
This is not a political issue of this government or that, or those wretched Tories and the Coalition. It goes back, root and stem, to Labour as well. There are no innocents in this. They are all as guilty as hell.
And this apology is not an apology and is not good enough...
- The Telegraph
Dr Heather Wood, who led the investigation which uncovered the Mid Staffordshire Hospital Trust scandal, in which up to 1,200 people died, accused the CQC of operating under a “culture of fear, which mimicked the very worst aspects of the NHS”.She said: “I think that their whole intention was to suppress any more stories which might be in the Mid-Staffs league.”The watchdog was embroiled in a deepening controversy tonight as it attempted to defend its decision to censor the damning report, which says the organisation may be involved in a “broader and ongoing cover-up”, suggesting that the whole truth about the CQCs suppression of the scandal has yet to emerge.
- Mail Online
A whistleblower who first raised concerns about the CQC spoke of her ‘appalling treatment’, warning the cover up ‘is wider and it is ongoing’ - mail
There is no protection for
whistleblowers. They must suffer indignity and exclusion or take the easy
option which, sometimes, is the only option.
According to the Telegraph,
at least 52 NHS staff have been silenced using gagging orders since 2008, some
of which cost as much as £500,000, amounting to £2m in pay-offs in all. All are
thought to contain confidentiality clauses.
And when we raise our concerns, we are treated with contempt. For that is what it is. Utter contempt!
- Mail Online
And so when does the news cease to be news and become just one more of those grim realities of life, a normality not worthy of mention?
Not even worthy of comment...?
Unnecessary deaths. Blunders compounded by blunders. Or a culture of callousness ingrained?
And they still entrust them with the execution of a Death Pathway?
It is not credible and yet it is so.
Yes, Mr. Hunt, it should be our right to know the names of those who treat us.
Yes, and they must be made responsible for their actions, by negligence and neglect.
Yes, and the managers and heads of departments and officials whose policies and protocols cause danger and harm to come us, by negligence and neglect.
Yes, and DoH officials, and Ministers of State whose decisions do likewise by such policies as rolling out the LCP with no form of safeguard or proper direction.
The fact that there is a review at all is an acceptance, an admission, that something is very wrong.
The police are at long last involved in investigating these awful, awful, unthinkable acts that have gone on in British hospitals - yes, British hospitals! - in this 21st century. This isn't some third world hospital under some grim dictator. This isn't Nazi Germany. This is the National-socialist Health Service!
I am staggered that I am writing this.
When, when, when are the charges of Corporate Manslaughter going to go straight to the top, not only to the top in the NHS, but to those in charge of this God-forsaken land?
Will you be calling for the Public Inquiry, Mr. Hunt, or will your successor?
But hey, even if they do have a public inquiry now...these creeps have all had an entire year to delete documents and forge new ones.....which was maybe why Norman Lamb and Neuberger encouraged people who have a claim against the government for the LCP [breaches of the mental capacity act and human rights act ] to send in details of their cases - so they can get their Defence worked out in advance of a public inquiry.....
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