PA response to failings at Basildon & Thurrock NHS Foundation Trust
In response to concerns that have been raised about the quality of care at Basildon & Thurrock NHS Foundation Trust PA Director Katherine Murphy said:
“Maidstone. Tunbridge Wells. Stoke Mandeville. Mid staffordshire. Now Basildon. Will this be described as another one off? Yet again we find patients being let down appallingly. Lack of monitoring, lack of help with feeding, lack of dignity. How many times do the public need to keep hearing about this before the Government is embarrassed enough to do something about it?
Will someone be held to account this time? The Chief Exec at Mid Staffs got away with over £1 million of tax payers money. Is it any wonder that other Chief Executives and Boards continue to let patients suffer under their care.
Yet again the regulators assessment of a hospital has proven to farcical. It is nothing but a tick box exercise that didn’t reveal any of these problems. The evidence was there but not acted on. That is completely unacceptable. The system of regulation and supervision needs to be urgently reformed. The new system will not introduce the kind of rigorous on site assessment that is so desperately needed so that the public can have some confidence in what they are being told about their local hospital.
The NHS has bad billions of extra taxpayers money invested but it is not providing basic aspects of care that should be its very first priority. Instead we have another hospital with filthy wards, unsafe practices and a lack of basic nursing care.
We have been trying to highlight the very grave problems facing some groups of hospital patients for months now but we have been repeatedly brushed off. Patients face the very real threat of being neglected on NHS wards. The Department of Health response each time is that it’s only a minority-what will they say this time?
We need radical reform of complaints handling. We need radical reform of supervision and regulation. We need to protect particularly vulnerable groups like the elderly. Most of all we need accountability. NHS managers and staff should be held to account and not be allowed to move on to other jobs when they’ve let patients down so appallingly. We’re sick and tired of NHS managers walking away unscathed when families are left with a life sentence of grief."
If you have been a patient at this Trust and would like to share your experience with the Patients Association please contact us by emailing mailbox@patients-association.com or calling us on 0208 423 9111 or for out of hours 07779004898.
