By Haseeb Arif
A National Health Scandal
13,000 – The number of “excess deaths” between 2005 and 2010. 1,600 – The number of deaths “above the national NHS average” recorded at Basildon and Thurrock university hospital. 14 – The total number of failing NHS trusts in England alone.
Former Conservative Chancellor Norman Lamont once called the NHS “the closest thing the English have to a national religion”. If that is true the Keogh report may have shown us the price of faith.
In the Keogh report, commissioned by the Prime Minister in February and set for release on Tuesday, Professor Sir Bruce Keogh, the NHS Medical director of England, will outline the failings of 14 NHS trusts, which between them accounted for “13,000 excess deaths” since 2005. The report will pile pressure on the already ailing Labour leadership, calling to account the appalling cover ups orchestrated by the administration. It will also delineate the intrinsic failures in these institutions, describing how each of these institution let their patients down badly through poor care, medical errors and failures of management and will unearth the shocking truth regarding Stafford Hospital, which it is reported was not a “one off” as the Labour Government had lead the public to believe. At the worst hospital, Basildon and Thurrock in Essex, the mortality ratio from 2005 until last year was 20 percent above the NHS average, with up to 1,600 more deaths than at an average NHS hospital.
The dichotomy of what has been said and what has been done between the years of 2005 and 2010 by the Labour Government is astounding. The true scale of the failings that have taken place within NHS trusts throughout the country is only now becoming apparent. Leaks from the Keogh report, printed in the Sunday Telegraph show that it has been found that Labour systematically tried to cover up the fatal warning signs, with the NHS watchdogs, the Healthcare commission, later succeeded by the Care Quality Commission rating all 14 of these failing institutions as “good”. The shocking extent of the failures at these institutions is only now becoming manifest, due to the cover-ups made by the NHS watchdog under pressure placed by the Labour administration.
So intent was the Labour government in ensuring the image of the NHS remained as pristine as possible, they brought the care and the welfare of patients, the crux of the formation of the NHS, into disrepute.
The ultimate tragedy is that the underperforming hospitals could have been improved as far back as 2005, if the Labour Government had taken the necessary action required to raise the quality of care. However ministers were more intent on electoral success than patient welfare, which has now ended in a shameful chapter in the 60 year history of the NHS.
Professor Sir Brian Jarman, who is also working on the Keogh report, slammed what he called the Labour “denial machine” and has accused Labour Ministers of ignoring his data, which showed the mortality rates as being the highest for a decade. The culture of denial within the Department of Health under the Labour Government trickled out into the many institutions, ultimately degrading patient welfare. They had knowledge of the acts of neglect, the surgical blunders, and mistakes yet did nothing to improve the quality of the care of the patients even to the base level, despite all of these warning signs. Ministers were too focussed on spin and delivering a good news story than actually squaring up to the problems, which were slowly increasing the strength of the vice like grip they held many NHS institutions around the country in, resulting in horrific cases of patient welfare degradation that are only beginning to surface.
The Coalition understands how important transparency is. It has made a gripping case for going public with data on doctor, surgeon and hospital performance. This has been met by some pockets of resistance from within the old system, however they are but the death throes of the poisoned culture, which allowed the appalling scale of failings at many institutions within the NHS to remain hidden. It has announced plans that it will send in “hit squads” of specialised staff with the power to sack NHS managers, to up to 10 of the 14 worst failing NHS institutions in an attempt to raise the level of care within these grossly under performing institutions. It is certain that coalition pressure on labour will rise once the Keogh report is officially released.
Shadow (and former) Health Secretary Andy Burnham had ordered his own report into the 5 worst of the 14 failing institutions listed in the Keogh report. The report may have been ordered, however nothing is taken away from the indelible fact that Labour did nothing to fight the failures that were intrinsic at these institutions. Even more worryingly, it is not merely a case of negligence; it is a case of active opposition to any criticism levelled at the NHS, which was paraded around like a ceremonial cow with any harrowing insight into affairs at failing institutions such as Basildon and Thurrock hospital, covered up in favour of electoral success.
It is deeply unfortunate and morbidly ironic that the very institution whose legitimacy and triumph has been ingrained into the psyche of the public has been tarnished so much by incompetence of the Labour government, which supposedly placed so much value upon it. The shocking scale of these cover ups are only now becoming clear. The importance of the Keogh report will be how well the Coalition government can learn from the failures of the past and ensure such the NHS is restored so that it actually lives up to the greatness that it has so often been ascribed. It is essential for the Coalition Government to ensure that this institution undergoes the reforms that it requires in order for the quality of patient care to be restored, so that the NHS can truly deserve the faith we place in it.
Haseeb Arif is currently studying Biomedical sciences. He aims to work to achieve a fairer and stronger society. He doesn’t like cricket – He loves it.
Image from ITV.com
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