Giving the NMC Rope

In my view, there has always been a serious problem with those who are in trouble and provide the authorities with the necessary material to publicly hang them. We have seen the admissions in Shrine Broadman's case which led to her dismissal and a subsequent scrutiny. I never understand why people do this ie why people "admit" the crime there are accused of. English is a wonderful language and many things can be done with it without having to "admit" everything outright. It is the medical mindset to simply grovel and apologise in the hope that the world and its corrupt management forgives them. I know of a doctor facing the General Medical Council who admitted wrong doing despite the fact there was no wrong doing. He was hoodwinked into thinking that his admissions would give him a lesser sentence. It didn't of course and he suffered the consequence and humiliation of the judge subsequently reminding him that he did apologise and it was this apology that made the GMC's case.

The BBC quotes "Ms Haywood had admitted breaching patient confidentiality but denied her fitness to practise had been impaired"

There we go again, " Admitted breaching patient's confidentiality". Seriously, which lawyer at the RCN advised her to do that? Panorama had sought the consent of the families to film the patients. The Liverpool Echo quoted

"Ms Haywood said only those patients who gave their consent or whose relatives had given consent after the filming appeared in the documentary"

Under those circumstances, there is no breach of confidentiality so why admit it?

As for Panorama, here is the production team who clearly happily watched Undercover Nurse go down.

Reporter: Sarah Barclay
Producer: Liz Bloor
Second Chair Louise Norman
Assistant Producers: Shabnam Grewal, Alison Priestley, Janette Ballard, Eleanor Plowden
Researcher: Amelia Vale
Deputy Editors: Andrew Bell, Frank Simmonds
Editor: Mike Robinson

And this was the conversation where I warned them of potential regulatory body onslaughts. The two didn't think I was being remotely serious and that it was an " isolated" incident and in my case their view was " where there is smoke, there is probably fire as well"

---- Original Message -----
From: Alison Priestley
To: rpal@btinternet.com
Cc: ritapal@poetess.fsnet.co.uk
Sent: Wednesday, May 09, 2007 2:48 PM
Subject: Getting in touch


Dear Rita,

You may remember that both I and my producer, Liz Bloor, either spoke to you on the 'phone or met you a few years ago during the making of our programme, 'Undercover Nurse' (Panorama, BBC One, July 2005)? It would be very helpful to speak to you about another, related, matter which I'm just beginning to look into for Panorama......

Alison Priestley

This was Liz Bloor.

She said: `We needed to see what was really happening, so we felt our only option really was to ask somebody to go undercover on a ward and that person really should be a nurse.

`Given that most of the complaints we had were to do with medical care, we thought that would be an appropriate route.`

Actually, that was "Nursing care" Liz. No one has yet figured out what medical problems existed and how there was a failure of "Medical" as opposed to "nursing" management of patients. There is absolutely no reason why Liz Bloor could not have hired a care assistant or a worker who was not registered with a regulatory body. It really does escape me why any programme would place someone in jeopardy knowing very well that an admission of breach of confidentiality leads to being struck off in any regulatory body.

Margaret Haywood worsened her case by making various admissions. This one is in the Daily Mail "

I understood that I was breaching patient confidentiality but I thought my actions were justified,' s

For the duty of confidentiality to be broken, a patient would have to have complained about the use of their personal data. In this case, no patient did and therefore there was no breach of " confidentiality". So, essentially all patients agreed to their data being broadcast so where on earth did the NMC get the idea of "breach of confidentiality". Well, they got it from Margaret Haywood herself who despite being a nurse shows herself up to be completely naive about what constitutes a breach of a duty of confidentiality.

We then review further - the NHS Code of Practice in relation to Confidentiality

Under common law, staff are permitted to disclose personal information in order to prevent and support detection, investigation and punishment of serious crime and/or to prevent abuse or serious harm to others where they judge, on a case by case basis, that the public good that would be achieved by the disclosure outweighs both the obligation of confidentiality to the individual patient concerned and the broader public interest in the provision of a confidential service.

We then go to the NMC and observe this at 5.3

If you are required to disclose information outside the team that will have personal consequences for patients or clients, you must obtain their consent. If the patient or client withholds consent, or if consent cannot be obtained for whatever reason, disclosures may be
made only where:

1. they can be justified in the public interest (usually where disclosure is essential to protect he patient or client or someone else from the risk of significant harm);
2. they are required by law or by order of a court.

So given consent was obtained and the matter was of " public interest", the only rope given to the NMC was Margaret Haywood's admission of breach of confidentiality. I suggest that Margaret Haywood cease being a media queen for a minute or two and apply her whistleblowing mind to the law of confidentiality because only a person with no understanding of the rules and laws would make such an admission.

And if Margaret Haywood and Liz Bloor really had the foresight, they could have quoted the case of a whistleblower who once whistleblew to the Sunday Times in the year 2nd April 2000 and did not get struck off for it. I can't imagine that they would have thought about that because women who think they know it all often don't and thats how they get themselves into boiling hot water then scream and shout through the media demanding public sympathy.

In conclusion, there was no reason Margaret Haywood should have admitted to a breach of confidentiality. The fact that she did directly led to her being struck off. No appeal is going to be successful given this blatant admission by her. Let that be a lesson to any innocent person who is stupid enough to make admissions.