A petition launched by a GP to create a new regulatory body to hold NHS managers accountable has gathered more than 14,000 signatures in less than two days.
Dr Anup Singh, a GP in Nottingham, launched a petition yesterday asking for parliament to pass legislation to create a new watchdog for NHS managers, as a direct result of the Lucy Letby case.
The petition, launched with the support of the Doctors Association UK, urges an independent regulator to be formed to hold NHS managers accountable for decisions affecting patient safety.
It aims for regulation to allow patients and families to refer complaints about managers.
DAUK said: ‘Most managers are dedicated professionals, but some are not held responsible when their decisions negatively impact care.
‘The petition highlights the recent Lucy Letby case, where multiple consultants raised concerns early but subsequently had their concerns dismissed without merit.’
Former neonatal nurse Lucy Letby will spend the rest of her life in prison after being found guilty of murdering seven infants and attempting to murder six others.
In the aftermath of her sentence on Monday, there have been calls for more accountability of NHS management, as it was revealed in court that doctors’ concerns about Letby’s potential involvement with the deaths of babies to management were ignored.
Dr Ravi Jayaram, a consultant paediatrician at the centre of the Letby case at The Countess of Chester, also backed the petition.
He said: ‘A corporate manslaughter charge against the Countess of Chester as an organisation might result in a large fine but this ultimately punishes the patients cared for there, whilst the individuals whose actions facilitated this situation face no sanctions and can continue to work on highly paid NHS executive posts.
‘There needs to be a system in place so that top-level NHS managers are subject to scrutiny through an independent professional regulatory body just as frontline healthcare professionals are regulated.’
DAUK co-chair Dr Matt Kneale said: ‘We believe new accountability through regulation will improve NHS patient safety.
‘Doctors and other healthcare professionals already answer to regulators if care quality drops — why do we not hold managers to the same standards when they control resources affecting care?
‘Managers must make difficult decisions on whistleblowing concerns, but shouldn’t escape responsibility for unsafe practices or outright neglect of concerns. Regulation would help to ensure transparency and accountability for those with such responsibility.’
After Letby’s trail verdict earlier this week, BMA council chair Professor Phil Banfield said: ‘This case has brought to focus the adverse challenges and experiences that doctors, and other healthcare professionals, face when they identify and act on concerns about patient safety.
‘We are committed to supporting doctors who bravely highlight when something is wrong and continue to support our members who were involved in giving evidence during this highly distressing case.
‘The BMA has been clear that the NHS and the whole healthcare system must have an open culture where doctors are listened to and can be confident in speaking out.
‘We have long called for non-clinical managers in the NHS and other health service providers to be regulated, in line with the manner in which clinical staff are by professional bodies.’
The Government will respond to the petition as it already gathered more than 10,000 signatures but 100,000 signatures are needed for it to be considered for debate in parliament.
What the petition says
We would like NHS managers to be required to be registered and held to a set of professional standards, which are regulated by a governing body, similar to doctors and nurses.
This should include non-clinical directors, chief executives and other managers, so they are held accountable for decisions that affect patient care.
We believe this would help improve standards and safety for patients
Source: petition.parliament.uk
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READERS' COMMENTS [8]
Please note, only GPs are permitted to add comments to articles
It might help, but the managers concerned are nearly all clinicians who are already regulated and who will be subject to a code of managerial practice (the GMC does set out such a a code for example although rarely takes action on it). Shocking though the timeline sounds, it is too soon fairly to make a judgment. I am far from sure that ‘regulating managers’ is the correct or necessary response to the exposure of a murderer clinician. A knee jerk response, possibly prompted by widespread (and frequentl;y misplaced) anti-managerial prejudice does not sound like the right way to go right now. The NHS is seriously over-regulated as it is,
This is very unwise.
Initiating witch-hunts in the wake of an unspeakably evil (if fortunately rare) case such as Letby’s rarely leads to sensible policy outcomes.
GPs will undoubtedly remember the disastrous fallout from Shipman’s murder spree.
We were all saddled with an increasingly bureaucratic annual appraisal and revalidation that not only sent thousands of experienced GPs into early retirement but ironically would have been passed with flying colours by one Harold Shipman.
Allow the Letby investigation to conclude and assess its recommendations before sharpening the pitchforks and lighting the torches.
Managers living in fear of prosecution could easily make our working lives far worse as they scramble to cover their backsides and dodge responsibility.
When in positions of responsibility and/or demanding high salaries and privileges aligning with these positions, then accountability must also occur. Many relatively inexperienced individuals and on occasion unqualified individuals can rise to relatively dizzy heights within the NHS just via relatively unvetted rises in seniority with substantial salary rises and little accountability for performance. If one does not wish to sidestep the issues, many of the managers we see in the NHS of all levels would not be in these positions in the private sector in my view as they would not withstand the levels of scrutiny which comes part and parcel with these positions.
Currently managers within Primary care are wishing to be recognised as a recognised body in their own right which is quite warranted and deserved and this is currently in process and active.
However, with this comes rigorous regulation and accountability of managers at all levels including the risk of investigation in line with doctors and nurses professional regulation and should include all managers including within Primary care and is long overdue.
Agree with first 2 submissions.
I understand one of the nurse managers (in a different post now) has had an NMC investigation reinstated following conclusion of the court case.
I agree with Anna and Arup.
We forget too quickly how Dr Shipton was allowed to continue killing after several Doctors raised concerns, but were dismissed, just as Consultants in this case did. After Shipman, there was an enquiry which resulted only in significantly increased administrative burden on Doctors, and nothing more. But there was nothing wrong with what the Doctors did in the Shipman case, the Doctors DID notice a problem, reported it, and were told to shut up. So fas as I know there were no repurcussions on the managers who batted it down under the carpet, they were just promoted again to higher salaries.
The same will happen in this case, the Doctors who did what they were supposed to do were punished, humiliated, and concerns dismissed. Those who mistreated the Doctors for doimng the right thing, will just get promoted. There will be an enquiry which will criticise doctors for faling to raise concerns, and there will be an increase in administrative burden on doctors supervising nurses; probably requiring everyone to have fingerprint or retina scans when they enter or leave an SCBU! But nothing will help the attitude of mistrust – it will damage doctor-patient relationships further, and nurses possibly too. This is WRONG. Those who were wrong must be held to account. It is their fault that some of these babies died. They contributed to murder,
I’ ve started a petition too with a view to having the chief exec face a manslaughter charge.Copy and paste the link into your browser if you want to see that happen. https://chng.it/mRY4BkgVLt
The system needs to look at punishing the criminal and not everyone else. It is because the punishment is not severe enough that justice can only be seen to be done by punishing others. I bet the chief executive does not even know what is happening at the frontline.
Oh no!
A GP calling for more regulation?
We should know better
The problem is systemic
Punishing CEOs and trust managers for carrying out ministerial wishes completely misses the point