Patients deliberately harassed
- Top hospital dumped a frightened old man in a cupboard. Daily Mail, 19 July 1999.
- Milburn 'hit squad' to check on hospital after claims of cruelty. Guardian March 31, 2000
- Patients' lives are being ruined because of growing disregard for confidentiality. Medical records, detailing their most intimate and embarrassing secrets, are increasingly being passed around without their consent. Observer 25 June 2000
- An NHS team is to investigate management procedures at a group of hospitals after allegations of racism by a surgeon who resigned this year.
Guardian 19 August 2000.
- Girl died under surgeon 'who lost temper'. Rebecca Allison Guardian
Unlimited Friday December 7, 2001
- NHS gives lone parents a rough ride. Guardian
Society Friday January 4, 2002
- Fat people stigmatised for lack of willpower. Guardian
Friday January 4, 2002
- Brainwashed. Mental illnesses are caused by chemical imbalances in the
brain, right? Wrong, says Craig Newnes. Guardian
Unlimited Thursday January 10, 2002
- See letter
received on 13 January 2002.
- Children being treated by the NHS are poorly protected against the risk of
abuse from their professional carers, according to a report yesterday
advising 150 extra safeguards to avoid more suffering. Guardian
Wednesday March 6, 2002
- Breast cancer patients tell health editor Jo Revill that indignity has
been added to their distress. And they say they have not been told the full
truth about their treatment.
Sunday
November 17, 2002 The Observer
Union leaders today called for an independent inquiry into allegations of
serious sexual abuse of female patients at one of the UK's high security
psychiatric hospitals.
Thursday March 6, 2003
Broadmoor's cover-up. Another brave whistleblower suffers.
Leader
Saturday March 8, 2003 The Guardian
The high court yesterday banned a father under anti-stalking laws from
besieging a hospital in an attempt to get discontinued treatment reinstated
for his 11-year-old daughter. Clare Dyer, legal correspondent
Tuesday June 10, 2003 The Guardian . (Even if the legal action in
this case has some justification, it could create a dangerous precedent for
blocking patients and their relatives who try to put pressure on the NHS to
meet their reasonable expectations.)
An NHS agency today ordered an end to the punitive treatment of people who
deliberately injure themselves, including stitching up their wounds without
anaesthetic, in a bid to tackle Britain's "epidemic" levels of self-harm.
People who deliberately harm themselves should receive the same care and
respect as other patients, the National Institute for Clinical Excellence
(Nice) has said. David Batty and agencies
Wednesday July 28, 2004
Veteran health service manager Ken Jarrold retires at the end of December,
but he is not going meekly. His
valedictory speech to the Institute of Health Management last week was a
powerful critique of the NHS under new Labour. Jarrold skewered Labour's
failings unerringly: policy incoherence, thoughtless structural change, and no
effective financial management. Most startling was his assessment of the
corrosive effect of targets: "There is bullying and harassment at all levels.
The drive to deliver has become, in some places, an opportunity for
inappropriate behaviour. Performance management is not a value-free zone."
Patrick Butler Wednesday
November 23, 2005 The Guardian
One of Britain's leading charities for people with
severe learning
disabilities has been accused of abusing some of the most vulnerable people
under its care, The Observer can reveal. An employee of United Response, which
runs more than 100 care homes across England looking after people with learning
disabilities, turned
whistle-blower to report on 'appalling' events he alleges
he witnessed at the company's Gombards care home in Welwyn Garden City,
Hertfordshire. Two senior members of staff at the home have been suspended,
although the company claims this is unrelated to accusations of abuse.
Sunday
February 19, 2006 The Observer
A frail
widow has been awarded more than £10,000 compensation after her family
produced a video which allegedly showed her being
force-fed talcum powder by the care workers who were supposed to be looking
after her. Lucy Neal, 89, was filmed by security cameras at her son's home in
Handsworth,
Birmingham, as the carers started to powder her chest. When she challenged
them, they appeared to tip the talcum into her mouth. The three carers, who were
employed by the Birmingham-based Welcome Care Agency, were found not guilty of
assault at Birmingham magistrates court in 2004, but a district judge told
Nordia Noteman, Maxine Davidson and Rosemarie Malvo that their care fell below
expected standards. Mrs Neal then took a civil action against the agency, which
ended in an out-of-court settlement. Her lawyers said yesterday the agency
admitted negligence and agreed to pay a five-figure sum in compensation. John
Carvel, social affairs editor
Wednesday July 12, 2006 The Guardian
Anger at plans for NHS database of gay men. An NHS database holding
intimate information about the sexual behaviour of thousands of gay men is being
planned by health trusts as part of a drive to encourage safer sex, a charity
disclosed today. The possibility that sensitive data could be accessed by
computer hackers is causing anxiety across the gay community in
London, where it will be launched later this year. John Carvel, social
affairs editor
Wednesday
May 23, 2007 SocietyGuardian.co.uk
Nurse quits after foul-mouthed tirade at heart attack victim. A nurse
has resigned after telling a heart attack patient that he had no right to
complain about being left lying in urine for two hours on a trolley. Mark
Wright, 39, was shocked when the nurse refused to listen to his concerns and
started screaming abuse at him in front of other patients at
Weston General hospital, Somerset. He had been admitted to the hospital
after suffering severe chest pains, but was left on a trolley for two hours
before being moved to a general ward for tests. Mr Wright described conditions
there as filthy. When he complained of further pains during the night, he was
told he would be examined in the morning. He and six other patients wrote a
letter of complaint about their poor treatment, using a form given to them by
the hospital. But the next day the nurse confronted him about the complaint and
launched into a tirade as he was having his blood pressure taken. Press
Association
Tuesday
May 29, 2007 The Guardian
Air Ambulance
charity calls for heads to rolls as Hospital snubs suffering child. From a
press release: The independent air ambulance charity that serves Kent, Surrey
and Sussex is calling for heads to roll at the
Queen Victoria Hospital, East Grinstead, after the South East's only burns
unit adopted a policy of not accepting any patients referred by the charity's
doctors. On Sunday 5th August at about 7pm, a distraught mother rushed her
seriously burned 8-month-old son to the charity's airbase. The care doctor on
duty decided that the 3rd degree burns were so severe, the child needed to be
assessed and treated by a burns hospital. Because the emergency helicopter had
gone off-line for the day arrangements were made with the South East Coast
Ambulance Service to rush the little boy to the East Grinstead hospital. When
the Kent Air Ambulance doctor telephoned Queen Victoria Hospital burns unit to
make the referral she was told by the nurse in charge that the unit was not
prepared to accept the patient. When challenged as to why, she was told that the
burns unit now had a policy of not accepting any air ambulance patients. This is
not the first time the charity has traded blows with the QVH. Last year the
charity threatened to serve a Section 11 notice on the hospital (under the
Health and Social Care Act 2001) after it emerged that the hospital had closed
its helipad without consulting with the charity, even though it had a duty at
law to do so. The hospital promised to re-instate the helipad elsewhere in the
hospital grounds. To date this has still has not happened.
Summary by
Keep our NHS Public
of Rotorhub
17 August 2007
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