Dr Jenny Vaughan DAUK’s aLaw and Policy Officer speaks to the BMJ and explores why there is a disproportionate referral rate of ethnic minority doctors to fitness to practise processes.
The Doctors’ Association UK speaks to the BMJ after an internal email to senior clinicians at the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust encourages discharging patients ‘earlier than some clinicians would like’ admitting that these patients could come to harm.
In the wake of the Bawa-Garba case a campaign by the Doctors’ Association UK to end blame culture in the NHS has received high profile support.
Our Chair Dr Samantha Batt-Rawden shares her view in the BMJ after interviewing Charlie Massey (chief executive GMC) for a documentary Sammy presented on BBC Radio 4. In this interview Charlie Massy admits for the first time that his decision to take Dr Bawa-Garba to the Hight Court to have her struck off was incorrect.
The General Medical Council (GMC) has just published the 29 final recommendations of the long-awaited reviewinto how gross negligence manslaughter and culpable homicide are applied to medical practice. This was an independent review chaired by consultant cardiac surgeon, Leslie Hamilton, and undertaken after widespread criticism of the GMC’s handling of the case of Hadiza Bawa-Garba. The Doctor’s Association UK, among many other organisations, has been calling for a truly “Just Culture” to be adopted by the NHS for staff and patients alike as part of its Learn Not Blame campaign, and broadly welcomes the report.
Dr Jenny Vaughan, DAUK’s Law and Policy officer writes for the BMJ about the case which has rocked medicine more than any other in recent times. Read her analysis as…
Following the annoucement that Trusts in England will receive an extra £30-60K for improving rest facilities for doctors, DAUK was asked to comment with ideas on how the money could be best spent.
Our Chair, Dr Samantha Batt-Rawden said in the BMJ:
“Don’t forget doctors who cannot get to the mess. Satellite rest hubs could be considered for areas such as labour ward, neonatal, paediatric, and adult intensive care units, and emergency departments, where doctors may not be able to get away. Providing expressing facilities for breastfeeding mothers is an important but often neglected consideration. None of this is revolutionary, but getting the basics is important if we are to start treating doctors as human beings, not just numbers on the rota.”
