As the CQC downgrades West Suffolk hospital’s rating from Outstanding to Requires Improvement DAUK Chair Dr Rinesh Parmar raises questions for the Health Secretary who ‘buried his head in the sand’ when doctors tried to approach him with patient safety concerns.
Following allegations from staff that West Suffolk started a finger-printing ‘witch hunt’ to identify an anonymous whistleblower, Dr Rinesh Parmar DAUK Chair talks to The Guardian after fresh concerns are raised.
The government has ordered an urgent inquiry into the local hospital of the Health Secretary after DAUK revealed its unprecedented ‘witch-hunt’ for a whistleblower in The Guardian.
Patients have had to sleep overnight in the Emergency Department of one the NHS’s biggest hospitals because it is overwhelmed by the number of people needing care. In recent weeks DAUK has highlighted how hospitals are struggling to cope this winter including at The Royal Cornwall hospital.
Last month DAUK and the Guardian revealed that the anonymous letter had prompted an unprecedented “witch-hunt” by the hospital bosses to try to identify the staff member who had sent the letter. This week the Guardian further revealed that the trust had spent more than £2,500 on handwriting and fingerprint experts. DAUK Chair Dr Rinesh Parmar speaks to The Guardian as the inquest is adjourned.
Trust bosses at the Royal Cornwall Hospital emailed senior clinicians asking them to consider early discharge. The email acknowledges this cause harm however deems this a proportionate risk. The Doctors’ Association UK Chair speaks to The Guardian, calling the move from NHS managers ‘morally repugnant’.
After conducting a serious incident investigation into a patient’s treatment, West Suffolk allegedly threatened senior medics with possible disciplinary action if they failed to give their fingerprints and samples of their handwriting to find the whistleblower. DAUK Chair Dr Rinesh Parmar responds to this news in The Guardian.
