Marshpig

NHS SPENT £5,000 OF PUBLIC MONEY A DAY ON LAWYERS TO SILENCE A WHISTLEBLOWER Dr Kevin Beatt (@drbeatt) was one of the most respected cardiologists in the country. He pioneered heart attack treatment at Croydon University Hospital (@croydonhealth). And then a senior nurse was suspended mid-procedure, without his knowledge, and a 63-year-old patient named Gerald Storey died on the table. Dr Beatt was left for 20 minutes with a nurse who had no basic familiarity with the procedure. He called the decision to suspend the nurse "the most overtly reckless act" he had witnessed in his career. A coroner later agreed the suspension contributed to the patient's death. So Dr Beatt did what any responsible clinician would do. He raised concerns. Staffing shortages. Appalling equipment. Bullying of junior staff. Ageing radiation machinery putting patients and staff at risk. He kept raising them. For years. In September 2012 he was sacked for gross misconduct. The tribunal in 2014 was not impressed. It found there was "no evidence" Dr Beatt had an ulterior motive, that "extremely damaging and entirely false" allegations had been directed at him, and that a misleading press statement about his dismissal had been "calculated and was likely to cause damage to his reputation." Not only did Dr Beatt win, but the tribunal determined he had not contributed in any way to the dispute. That is unusual. Employers almost always manufacture some conflict to argue contributory fault. The trust's response? Appeal. Then appeal again. Then try the Supreme Court. The whole thing only ended when the Supreme Court refused the trust leave to appeal a Court of Appeal decision in Dr Beatt's favour. He was eventually awarded £857,110.25 in compensation, including £25,000 for injury to feelings and £7,500 in aggravated damages. During all of this, the GMC continued to investigate him even after he was exonerated by the tribunal. He struggled to find work. His career, his reputation, his finances: all ground down by the very institutions that were supposed to protect patients. In 2015 Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt (@Jeremy_Hunt) was criticised for refusing to intervene, saying it was a matter for the local NHS Trust, which at the time was spending £5,000 a day on legal fees to fight the man who tried to save a patient's life. The trust later said it was "pleased" to have the matter concluded. They also said they "strive to ensure staff feel supported to raise concerns." Genuinely extraordinary stuff. Dr Beatt described what happened to him in his own words: "What they do is, if things have gone badly wrong, instead of saying things have gone badly wrong, they try to cover it up." A landmark case. A destroyed career. A dead patient. And an NHS trust that kept fighting right up until the highest court in the land told it to stop. Sources: The Guardian @guardian Croydon Guardian @croydonguardian ITV @ITV Dr Minh Alexander @minhalexander East London Lines @EastLondonLines Inside Croydon @insidecroydon

Hi @EnvAgency, I planned to go swimming in my river (River Roding) and checked the water quality and it’s full of sewage (often 5-7 ppm ammonia near outfalls) due to illegal outfalls putting over a billion litres of raw sewage into the river every year. The EA has not prosecuted a single one of these illegal spills or even asked Thames Water to fix them. What should I do now?

NHS BRIBED THE WRONG DOCTOR Dr Kim Holt (@drkimholt) was the designated doctor for children in care at St Ann's Hospital in Haringey. In 2007, she and three colleagues sent a formal written warning to Great Ormond Street Hospital (@GreatOrmondSt) management. Staff shortages. Poor record-keeping. A disaster waiting to happen. The response was not to fix the clinic. It was to remove Dr Holt from her post and place her on four years of special leave. When she refused to go quietly, the hospital offered her £80,000 with a gagging order attached. She turned it down. After Baby P died, the offer went up to £120,000. She turned that down too. Six months after her warnings were ignored, a locum with no experience of the clinic examined Baby Peter Connelly. The signs of abuse were there. They were missed. Two days later, the child was dead. The NHS Trust that ran the clinic eventually apologised. In writing. Four years later. Dr Holt went back to work. She framed the apology letter and hung it on her wall. She then founded Patients First to support the next generation of @NHS whistleblowers, because she knew there would be one. There always is. Sources: @guardian @BBCNews @thetimes @drkimholt