AIBU to be seething about David Nicholson

[LadyPessaryPam]

Sir David Nicholson has refused to resign. I think he should be sacked and then prosecuted. It scares me that someone like him is in charge of the NHS. He presided over Mid Staffs and all those deaths. He runs the NHS that issues gagging orders as a matter of course when honourable people whistleblow. He is an utter disgrace. What do these people have to do to get the old tin tack?

I just read your link to that article flatbread, thank you. Sobering reading. Both my parents worked in the NHS in senior management, and my SD worked in the same Trust as one of the whistleblowers detailed in that article. I remember when it all happened, it was very stressful for all concerned. My concern is the number of good staff I know of who have left, both managers and nurses/HVs/SNs on the ground who have left the NHS completely because they are so worried about the culture.

Love this

i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02501/060313-MATT-web_2501279a.jpg

Hope the link works.

I also want to thank flatbread for that article ( thank heavens for PRivate Eye)

The last paragraph, about how whistleblowers are gagged, is chilling.

I too feel Nicholson should go. My mum in law died in a midlands hospital in her own mess. My husband and I travelled from Wales to be with her. Poor woman who in life was so meticulous, in her last hours was left soiled. Poor Mum. My year broke for her. But having said that nothing has changed and the Midlands was not the only place. I went to hospital last week and although was not incapacitated to a great degree, I was offered no help to eat or drink. My daughter had to shower me I was offered no washing facilities. Tea and coffee was provided outside the wads,but I couldn't walk to get a drink unless another patient got it for me. Nothing has changed. He must go.

Yes ladypessary and now Cameron doesn't want to cap the poor old bankers bonuses It's effing abysmal.

I just love Nicholson's claim that he didn't know anything about gagging clauses no sirree no bob. Yeah right. They are in widespread use whenever anyone senior is brave enought to blow the whistle - it's not just Lincolnshire, the gagging clause that was revealed by the Today programme. But of course it's handy to pretend the Dept of Health has no idea about it... (Junior people just get bullied and harassed and forced out, often with the use of false allegations to their professional bodies - a nurse I knew who dared to raise concerns found her bosses solicited complaints about her and then reported her to the NMC - entirely vexacious, no substance in it at all as even the NMC realised, but the process took months and was severely damaging to her mental health and professional development.)

Yeah, trust chief executives just disappear with £500k of public money without sign off from the strategic health authority or Dept of Health - I think not!

Just want to say re the Baby P thing, that much of the problem imv was the idiot general public baying for blood. The Head of Social Services and Education who was forced to resign could have been considered responsible but I don't think she had been in the position that long and there were issues with staff shortages etc - and, after reading the link above , it looks much more like lack of record keeping in a major NHS hospital that resulted in no log of his constant mistreatment by his mother, that was the major contributor to his demise.

As regards DN, DCameron says he 'fully supports his work as head of the NHS' (sorry too lazy to look up exact phrasing) but by that token excludes fully supporting him as head of N Staffs. So imv he is for the chop sooner or later.

But in view of the getting rid of the Head of SS and Ed over Baby P we need to be vigilant that JUST getting rid of this arrogant twat at the top of the NHS isn't on it's own enough. Many more heads should roll.

edam I have heard this described as 'the process being the punishment'. It is designed to intimidate. I hope your nurse friend is OK now.

Baby P - there was a whistleblowing consultant at Great Ormond Street who warned the outpatient clinic was so under-funded and short-staffed that they would miss a serious case. She was, sadly, right. Hospital management bullied and suspended her instead of listening and reacting - and Baby Peter died.

AND then GOSH senior management tried to cover up their failures, deleting criticisms from the report they then submitted to regulatory bodies, without admitting it had been altered in any way. More interested in covering their own backs than in patient safety, more interested in bullying and demonising anyone who warns things might go wrong than in saving lives - and this at such a high profile trust!

LadyP - thanks, she's OK now but very bruised - and only OK becuase she happened to bump into someone who told a contact of mine who knows her way around systems and processes and was able to point out half a dozen ways this complaint was completely unfounded and outside the scope of the disciplinary process - the bullies had completely ignored due process, regulations, etc. etc. etc., presmably assuming no-one would dare to challenge them.

He should go. No doubt about it.

In most other fields, where the chief executive (or another senior manager) has been in charge during a catastrophic failing of any kind, they have fallen on their sword.

For as much as I loathe the banks right now, the chief executives of many banks stood down, when the failings of their organisations were revealed. Admittedly many of them stood down with nice big payouts, but still, at least they went.

And look at the BBC, the former Director General (who had only been there five minutes) fell on his sword, in light of the Jimmy Saville/Newsnight scandal. (Although admittedly, he got a nice fat payout too).

I'm sure there are many other examples.

Yet it appears Nicholson is dead set on remaining in post. He believes a change at the top isn't what the NHS needs right now.

My friend is a GP, and in her words, "oh no Mr Nicholson, a change is exactly what the NHS needs or we can't move on."

Your GP friend is't called Claire is she?

No she isn't. She's called Kathryn.

Oh, she sounds like a GP friend of mine.

Who I would never out I hasten to add.

screws up face, sixth-form style

Can't we do something, though?

There must be something we can do.

Start a Mumsnet campaign?

Cameron doesn't care about patients, but he does care about losing votes

I'm concerned that the culture of not caring about patients, but instead seeing them as impediments, is so embedded that it will never be rooted out. The staff who have been trained into that culture can't be ousted, and the younger ones will have a whole lifetime of work ahead of them.

Amillionyears, I too agree with flatbread: ""My suspicion is that there have been kick-backs and improper handling of NHS private contracts. Both Labour and Tory politicians may be involved. E.g., a spouse or child or son/daughter-in-law involved in companies getting the contracts.

It is a dirty business and Nicholson probably has the paper-trail."

I feel very strongly that this imbecile should be made an example of...sack him without compensation, and press charges for criminal negligence. Agree Cameron has an appalling record of seriously misguided judgement.

Simple question... When is DN going, Mr Cameron?

I have no time for the man. I know someone who left Staffs because management didn't like what they were hearing and weren't going to change. Targets over patient safety and quality of care? They say not, but not all practice what they preach. The culture has got to change. Targets, but not at the expense of patient safety and quality of care.

Can't help feeling there is an agenda here somehow. I'm sure DN will go but are the gov dragging it out to distract everyone from the whole basket of other issues that exist around the NHS and particularly its management.

I mean some in power at N Staffs moved on to other jobs in other Health districts.

And the criticism of many nursing and medical staff is being dropped in the baying for DN's blood. People should be sacked if they are negligent or cruel, not sent on a retraining course or retired.

I am not saying that the front line staff should take the rap, just that there are some crap front line staff who should also go.

Dr Chris Turner told the Francis inquiry that when he started work at Stafford A&E in 2007, the place was ?an absolute disaster?. He also said: "As a department we were immune to the sound of pain". There weren't enough doctors or nurses, the hospital relied on locums, and bullying managers threatened staff if they failed to discharge patients within the four hour waiting time target. So they sent a patient home to die of a ruptured spleen, because they hadn't assessed his injuries properly.

The Strategic Health Authority ordered the trust's senior managers to achieve Foundation Trust status - which meant cutting costs. Which meant cutting staff. Which meant not enough staff to do the job. Which meant patients were neglected. Yet people like David Nicholson and Barbara Hakin, the managers who enforced these lethal hateful policies, have seen their careers flourish and are now in charge of the whole ruddy NHS. While staff who tried to blow the whistle have been hounded out.

Nobody is indispensable, nobody. If he had to go they would find somebody else, because they would have to. So why are the tories insisting he is the best man for the job?

I cant help feeling that there is a strong reason why the government are clinging on to dear life to Nicholson. Whether its because he has some dirt he can dish or whether he is being used to bring in some controversial policy then released due to his unpopularity following it with a big fat handshake to ease him on his way.
It also ties in with The francis report recommending no scapegoats. There is a reason behind all this. I don't trust this goverment as far as I could throw them, not where the NHS is concerned.

Only this week they are trying to get through a bill to force GP's as part of the new commissioning to put all aspects of health care out to private tender. Why the hell hasn't this been all over the BBC and the papers. Its major news.
Its effectively privatisation via the backdoor. Something which this government categorically denied would happen if they got the health and social care bill through.

secure.38degrees.org.uk/page/s/nhs-section-75#petition

Meddie - section 75 has been in the press, there are rumblings of a u-turn

we need a campaign to get rid of him
I work for the NHS and the target driven culture is ruining care and driving excellent staff into mental health crises. it's shit