Little boy has been removed from hospital by his parents

[Itsfab]

He is very sick, needs constant treatment. His parents have taken him to France.

I don't understand why the hospital didn't notice or alert the police for 6 hours.

The police won't comment on the parents being Jehovah's Witnesses.

It sounds wrong when the statement said he was removed without consent. The child is theirs, should be allowed to be in charge of him, but of course it is he that will lose his life if not cared for and that isn't in his best interests necessarily.

I hope he is found and can be cured.

I think we need one of those sub-text caption stories.

'OK you can't get this fancy treatment abroad because it will show us up to be inadequate and if you go then everyone else will want it for their children'

'I said you can't have it and if you keep on at me I will just take your child away from you so you can't do anything anyway. So there'

'Officer, a child has gone missing. His parents are lunatics and unhinged and could do anything. They certainly can't look after him because he has a feeding tube'

'We can't just randomly pick up people for taking their children out of hospital'

'OK, let's talk to SS and see if we can get them on account of neglect. I've tried that before and it worked

'SS, this man is clearly neglecting his child by removing him from hospital'

'Why?'

'Because x y z medical reason' - [blinds them with science]

'Oh OK then - there you go, here's the paperwork'

neenawneenaw...

... 5 days later

If it wasn't so serious it would be like a scene off Twentytwelve.

I want to cringe for some professionals, not being a professional myself when they trot out the salesman pitch. There was one on the news this morning doing the salesman pitch talking about school meals, talking to the camera as if talking to five year olds.

I have no idea what type of training professionals are getting, I can tell you from personal experience, the Ashya King case and from serious case reviews it is not working, and lessons do not seem to be learned at all as they keep making the same mistake over and over again.

The training starts with Never Admit Guilt followed by Never Apologise.

Then you have the Agreed Lines to Take where you try to predict the questions that you will be asked so you have a good answer cobbled together that everyone can parrot.

Then you add some Frequently Asked Questions for the lazier of the journos to use.

All set out in a Press Release every word of which has been endorsed by your communication team

That's why I rarely believe what they try to tell me. It's usually spin.

unreal. I'd say let's go back a few weeks.

'But we don't want a blood transfusion whilst Ashya has his op as we're Jw's'

'If he doesn't have bt he will die religious nutters'

'What about giving Ashya x alternative to bt - here's info'

SGH annoyed at this point with parent researching and providing alternatives.

Then either SGH agree to op with alternative or parents accept that SGH will get an order allowing transfusion anyway.

SGH back is up already with parents being labelled as difficult.

Cue unreals sub text.

Then SGH police and Media rub their hands together at thought of whipping up public outrage against parents because of their religion. Hence the mention of religion in first police briefing.

Yes, WetAugust I don't think I saw any medical professionals on TV who were actually saying what they thought, just impersonal facts strung together to keep us all occupied, you almost expected their bosses to come out from a hiding place somewhere in the vicinity afterwards and give them a pat on the back for not dropping them in it by telling the truth.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15106217

Research suggests communication skills do not reliably improve with experience. Considerable effort is dedicated to courses improving communication skills for health professionals. Evaluation of such courses is important to enable evidence-based teaching and practice.

Thanks Potbelly :)

Someone else will have to do the media and legal behind the scenes sub text including the Spanish bit.

There definitely nees to be a Clegg and Cameron scene.

healthcarecomm.org/training/continuing-education-workshops/intensive-communication-skills-program/

I wonder if anyone has any funds available to do medical reserach into how to actually communicate with parents and patients? I suggest it is badly needed!

Maybe the script will have someone winding someone else up so they are in a "hot button" state

You don't need courses

You just need honesty compassion and patience.

I sometimes look back to the Dark Ages and wonder how we all managed without communication skills courses. Its actually non-communication arse-covering they are teaching. A friend in the NHS says they even brought in professional actors so they could do some role-playing.

must be costing a fortune

twitter.com/Fight4Ashya

Thank goodness the Kings SHOULD soon be reunited with their children, and Ashya should soon be in the embrace of his family again - but it's desperately sad that this whole mess happened in the first place when all that was needed was a request that Spanish police check whether Ashya was OK.

Naveed King has just posted on FB that his parents are free

news.sky.com/story/1329097/ashyas-parents-released-from-custody

Its a complete mystery to me why so many educated and articulate professionals just cannot talk to 'ordinary' people. I suspect that there is a lot going on here - insecurity, misplaced professional pride, fear of being sued etc, etc. But there do seem to be an awful lot of walls going up, an awful lot of jargon being used instead of just trying to talk to people in everyday language.

My own person favourite so far is a social worker who said 'audibly witnessed'. When she could have said 'heard'.

There are a lot of professionals working in the NHS who do a fabulous job and care deeply. I recognise this thread is not focused on that but I hope we don't forget that

'audibly witnessed' < stores for any future discussions with officialdom >

The lawyer representing the hospital trust has said
. Ashya needed further treatment after the removal of the tumour
. His doctors recommended chemotherapy and radiotherapy, but the family wanted proton beam therapy.
. Though the doctors did not believe it had "any benefit" for Ashya, the trust had no objection as it was "no better or worse than radiotherapy".

I presume this is just their opinion now, because if they had said this to the parents originally, none of this would have happened. What a cockup.

Either some doctor's ego was bruised, or Ashya didn't satisfy the NHS cost-benefit analysis to be sent abroad.

I don't believe in conspiracy theories, for what it's worth. I do believe that mere mortals make mistakes, though, because we all do.

I said right at the start that the media would love this story because either they get to paint the parents as evil or the NHS as incompetent. The way the story has panned out they have been able to do both.

Front, as someone who owes her life to the NHS a few times over, I don't disagree at all. But someone else - sorry I can't remember who - put it perfectly; most medical professionals she met were wonderful. But a few were awful - and they are the ones who really do the damage, its really hard to forgot or gloss over those kind of encounters. To have someone treat you badly when you are at your most vulnerable, particularly when that person has an enormous amount of power is a really damaging experience.

Bigchoc - you may also want to consider 'disguised compliance' and 'pre contemplative stage'. there are many, many more.

It may not have been the medical professionals that notified Police it's more likely to have been non-clinical hospital staff.
I met the doctor who saved my life recently. Most doctors are dedicated and highly skilled people Its the NHS as an organisation that I despair of at times

This might be interesting
transparencyproject.org.uk/ashya-king/