Professor Rod Griffiths CBE. You are a LIAR

I must thank Penny Mellor for reading the BMJ for me. She may be many things but she does spot media articles. When spotting said media articles she becomes much like a wolf hound sniffing out the articles and producing them on her website.

I find the BMJ rather boring to say the least. Someone has to read it, it might as well be an ex prisoner like Penny Mellor.

I see Fiona Godlee [Editor of the BMJ] has given Rod Griffiths further oxygen of publicity. Not only is he a negligent researcher but he lies at the drop of a hat. Prof Rod Griffiths can sue me if he wishes, I shall be ready for it anytime or anyday. To summarise this, Professor Rod Griffiths used to be Director of Public Health in the West Midlands. He was investigator in the Southall case eg the now discredited Griffiths Inquiry. The findings in the Nottingham Study and the Henshall case are opposite to the Griffiths Inquiry.

Griffiths was also the GMC investigator for Ward 87 North Staffordshire NHS Trust. During the investigation, David Fillingham the Chief Executive attempted to get Griffiths to refer me to the GMC in the year 2000. Griffiths did not do this but did do Fillingham a favour. According to Sarah Bedwell of the GMC, Griffiths had raised concerns about my alleged mental health problems. Griffiths denies this. Then he denies the time of day. The audit into Ward 87 were diametically opposite to the findings in the 2001 Report by John Creamer. Essentially, Rod Griffiths had lied. He told the GMC that " there was no evidence to substantiate my concerns". This is what prompted the GMC to commence a covert investigation into my so called mental health issues. Of course, there were never any mental health issues. The GMC later apologised to me via Blake Dobson and that incident resolved through the GMC's most embarassing litigation to date.

Edmund Hey et al may be all polite about Rod Griffiths but we have to remember that none of the members of PACA had the guts to refer Professor Rod Griffiths to the GMC. They did though spend extensive amounts of time debating the issue politely while David Southall was getting deeper and deeper into hot water.

I have published the recent two articles from the BMJ [ courtesy of resident BMJ sniffer hound Penny Mellor] .

Rod Griffiths slithers away because he has now been shown up to be an incompetent researcher. I know this because I made a GMC complaint about Professor Griffiths. The antics can be read here. The allegations listed by the General Medical Council summarises these issues I raised. The GMC though did their best to prevent the matter from reaching court or any hearing. The GMC threw it out the first time. I beat the Department of Health Lawyers at Rule 12 Presidential Review. The matter was taken through the procedures yet again.

During that period the GMC wrote the following allegations

Professor Griffiths - Annex A
Case reference: HH/FPD/2004/1056

That being registered under the Medical Act 1983 (as amended),

1. In April 2000, you were a Regional Director of Public Health for the West Midlands;

2. You were asked by the GMC to lead an investigation into allegations made to it earlier that month by Dr Pal of malpractice and sub-standard facilities and care at the City General Hospital in Stoke-on-Trent (“the hospital”), especially on ward 87, part of the University Hospital of North Staffordshire NHS Trust (“the Trust”), where she had worked as a doctor;

3. In January 2001 your report concluded, broadly, that Dr Pal’s allegations were misplaced;

4. a. On 27 April 2000, in the context of your investigation, you met Sarah Bedwell of the GMC and made the following, or similar, statements:

“[Dr Pal] should possibly have been more competent and knowledgeable than she appears to have been.”

“It may be that some of the problems arose because her own performance was sub-standard.”

b. You made these statements even though you had not investigated Dr Pal’s performance as a doctor;

c. At the same or another meeting with Sarah Bedwell and/or other GMC staff you raised concerns about Dr Pal’s physical and/or mental health, although you had not investigated this;

d. All/any of those three statements were dishonest and/or reckless and/or careless because you had not taken reasonable steps to verify them or put yourself in a position properly to assess Dr Pal’s competence or knowledge as a doctor or her physical and/or mental health,

e. By making these statements, you purposely sought to undermine and/or discredit Dr Pal,

f. Accordingly, you acted contrary to paragraphs 34, 35 and 51 of Good Medical Practice;

5. a. Your report’s conclusions about the practices and the standards of facilities and care of patients at the hospital were wrong and you dishonestly and/or recklessly and/or carelessly misled the GMC in this regard,

b. In particular, no reasonable doctor could have concluded that EP had not been neglected while a patient (especially from reading merely her medical records): see, especially, page 18, paragraph 33b of New Doctor,

c. Your intention was to undermine and/or discredit Dr Pal rather than to consider the evidence and report objectively,

d. Accordingly, you acted contrary to paragraph 34, 35 and 51 of Good Medical Practice.

6. a. In a letter dated 17 January 2005, submitted to the GMC on your behalf by Zahida Ramzan-Asghar, it was stated in relation to the missing drip set needed by Dr Pal to treat Evelyn Price that:

“An alternative available to the Complainant (i.e. Dr Pal) was to call a crash team herself and not leave the patient. The crash team would have had a drip set and would have provided more experience.”

b. This statement was misleading as you knew, or should have known, that crash teams do not routinely carry drip sets and it is contrary to accepted protocol to summon a crash team when the patient is not suffering from actual cardiac or respiratory arrest;

7. a. Your report was flawed by an undisclosed conflict of interest as it was in your interests and/or the interests of bodies for which you worked for your report to conclude, broadly, that Dr Pal’s allegations were misplaced. The more your report was critical of NHS practices or personnel, the more likely it was that NHS funds would be withheld or limited;

b. In particular, the conflict of interest arose through, and/or was accentuated by, your close association with Professor John Temple (the then Postgraduate Dean of the West Midlands Deanery), your involvement with the Service Increment for Teaching (“SIFT”) Joint Planning Committee and the threat posed by Dr Pal’s allegations to the hospital’s planned application for Pre Registration House Officer (PRHO) rotation,

c. Accordingly, you acted contrary to paragraphs 54 and 55 of Good Medical Practice;
8. a. You and the Trust accepted that there had been some deficiencies in practices, facilities and care of patients at the hospital, especially on ward 87, although you considered that efforts had been made to address them,
b. Nonetheless you dishonestly and/or recklessly and/or carelessly failed to mention and/or stress those acknowledged deficiencies in your report,
c. Your report ignored and/or minimised these deficiencies,
d. Accordingly, you acted contrary to paragraphs 26-27 of Good Medical Practice.

This finally went to case examiners who promptly threw it out but agreed with a number of points I had alleged. The audience can read the findings here. In a nutshell, Professor Rod Griffiths had compromised patient care, had misled the GMC and had shut down any further investigation. During the GMC investigation into his conduct his fibs began to escalate considerably. He then started to flount his CBE as evidence of his so called honesty. I have no doubts that the GMC was under pressure to throw the complaint out and they did. The decision was a "appease Rita" decision. A kind of " We agree with you but you will never prove it".

I threatened to judicially review this case but during this threat, the GMC conveniently instigated a complaint against me and lost me my job.

During this complaint

1. I was not allowed access to the full 2001 Dr Creamer Document. The playground farce detailing Toni Smerdon [ GMC Lawyers] game of pass the parcel is detailed here.
2. The GMC Refused to obtain documents from North Staffordshire NHS Trust. This is contrary to the ruling in Henshall.
3. The GMC overlooked the blatant dishonesties during Griffith's submissions. This included outright lies propagated by his legal representatives from the Department of Health.
4. The GMC refused to consider the matters listed below despite the fact I had raised them as evidence of repeated and similar conduct. His research misconduct was overlooked by the GMC.

Anyhow, as I am not one to give up, the matter has gone to Rule 12 Presidential Review again following disclosure of reports and various other findings. Let us see whether the GMC puts its money where its mouth is.

Joan Trowell Chair of Fitness to Practice

"The GMC’s key priority is to make its procedures fair and free from discrimination. Its reforms also emphasise prompt and effective investigation into serious concerns.” (October 04)

So while Edmund Hey is playing with his words on the BMJ and wafting it around the posher sectors of PACA, some of us do the real work that is required to get Professor Griffiths off the shop floor.

There is a certain irony of Rod Griffiths having an email address containing the word " demon". Yes, we know he flies on the dark side. We know that he and his mate Professor Temple concealed the truth from the GMC and every other authority. Of course, after all these years, it's the dirty little secrets that float out online that are troublesome for him to defend.


Latest from the BMJ.

Published 31 October 2008, doi:10.1136/bmj.a2347
Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a2347
Views & Reviews
Personal View
On drinking from a poisoned chalice
Rod Griffiths, president, Faculty of Public Health rod@stonebow.demon.co.uk

For a period in the late 1990s there were repeated headlines about research on children in North Staffordshire NHS Trust using continuous negative extrathoracic pressure (CNEP). They alleged that excessive deaths had occurred. As regional director of public health I had already commented to the media that premature babies of that age had a significant mortality and that the children in the trial had fared no worse that expected. Public health passed the story to the research and development directorate. The story did not go away and local MPs took it up. A meeting with the relevant minister and one of the MPs took place. The director of research and development should have gone, but he was in America. The minister wanted someone from the regional office to be present. I went.

By the time of the meeting formal complaints had already been made both to the General Medical Council and to the trust. To my surprise the minister asked a new, though not unreasonable, question: could there be a problem with the governance system, at that trust or in general? I was the regional director of public health, and I came out of the meeting having agreed to do a low key review to look at the system. Lesson one: poisoned chalices are easy to pick up. After the review was announced new patient groups appeared, complaining about what was then known as Munchausen’s syndrome by proxy, nothing to do with our terms of reference, but they were persistent in lobbying the minister’s office. It would have been excessively complex to have commissioned yet another inquiry, so this was added to the task that we were asked to do. Lesson two: when drinking from poisoned chalices, try to avoid top-ups. We hired a team that interviewed everyone who wanted to give evidence and appointed a panel with relevant expertise. We reviewed all the statements and decided which individuals or groups we needed to interview in person. We set up dates to take oral evidence and spent several days doing that. A number of potential witnesses were prepared to give evidence only on condition that their statements would not be made public. Of course when we reported, it made it easy for others to say, "Where did they get that idea from?"

Some of the evidence that was given in confidence was important and without it we would have had a less complete picture, but it did make the review easier to criticise. Lesson three: if you have to drink from a poisoned chalice, better to do it in full public view if you can. We were told many diverse stories about some issues, both in relation to research and in relation to child abuse. They could not all be true but documentation did not exist to verify one consistent story. We had to conclude that the essential question raised by the minister had some validity—there did seem to be something the matter with the system. Accordingly we recommended that research governance needed a better system; that child protection needed clearer guidance about possible fabricated illness; that consent needed clearer guidance; and that there should be a way of reporting supposed adverse events from all treatments, not just drugs. We also concluded that parents really needed to know if CNEP in neonates did damage or not.

Short of a new randomised control trial it seemed that funding a longer term follow-up might give the answer. Marlow et al have now completed the review that we commissioned (Lancet 2006;367:1080, doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(06)68475-4); it shows that CNEP was associated with no more damage than control treatments. Several months after we reported and ministers accepted all our recommendations, we were roundly attacked in the BMJ (BMJ 2000;321:715-6, doi:10.1136/bmj.321.7263.715). I can’t think of anything I have found more uncomfortable than that weekend. Worse still was having to speak on the Monday at a conference on a different subject, wondering just how many in the audience had read that week’s BMJ. Lesson four: when drinking from poisoned chalices, don’t expect the effects to wear off quickly. It is easy with hindsight to think of ways in which we could have been given different terms of reference, spent more money, done things differently. Commenting on the detail at this distance seems pointless but I do agree with those who say that a body is needed that can either investigate complaints about research or advise on the subject. Had such a body existed at that time, however, I still think it would have come to similar conclusions. We do need governance systems that protect patients and provide safe circumstances for research to prosper. Both are essential, but neither was guaranteed by the systems in place before we reported. No doubt the current system could be improved, but we do need a system or there will be more inquiries.

Finally, does drinking from the poisoned chalice do any good—is it good for the soul, the personal development and all that? Do you develop a thicker skin, making you tougher and more able to take poison in the future? I think not. I feel more vulnerable and easier to hurt as a result of the experience, though that may be a good thing. People who are in senior positions need thin skins, not thick ones. So lesson five for poisoned chalices is simple: when handed one, drink up and smile—it goes with the job.

Cite this as: BMJ 2008;337:a2347

Rapid Responses published: An appreciation of Professor Griffiths' identification of a poisoned chalice Iain Chalmers, Edmund Hey (31 October 2008) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

An appreciation of Professor Griffiths' identification of a poisoned chalice 31 October 2008 Iain Chalmers, Editor, James Lind Library James Lind Initiative, OX2 7LG, Edmund Hey Send response to journal: Re: An appreciation of Professor Griffiths' identification of a poisoned chalice

We write to express our appreciation of, and thanks to, Professor Rod Griffiths for publishing (1, 2) his perspectives on the events triggered by allegations that the trial of Continuous Negative Extrathoracic Pressure (CNEP) undertaken in neonates in Stoke on Trent was so flawed that it amounted to serious professional misconduct.

Everything we have come to know about this saga has made it clear that many of the allegations of misconduct had little to do with the CNEP trial and a lot to do with a determined campaign to destroy doctors who had been involved in child protection work, particularly David Southall and Martin Samuels.

As Professor Griffiths reports, once Ministers had agreed that an enquiry into the CNEP trial should take place, campaigners came out of the woodwork and demanded that the terms of reference of the enquiry be extended to investigate the child protection work done by these two paediatricians – in Professor Griffiths’ apt language, to top up the poisoned chalice that he had been handed. We agree wholeheartedly with Professor Griffiths’ conclusion that “if you have to drink from a poison chalice, better to do it in full public view.” We can also agree with him that, had a body capable of investigating complaints about research in public been in existence eight years ago, it might well “have come to similar conclusions” to his panel about the need for a more effective system of research governance.

Given Professor Griffiths’ views now on the CNEP trial (2), we are confident that he agrees with us that a thorough, public investigation would have been highly unlikely to have found fault with the way the CNEP trial was conducted. However, as we have made clear in our commentary in the Lancet (3), allegations of forged consent forms made behind closed doors continue to hang over the heads of 34 doctors who were providing neonatal care in Stoke on Trent during the early 1990s. No evidence to support these allegations has yet been made public. If consent forms were forged that is a scandal; if they were not then the allegations were false and highly derogatory and damaging (4). Although we believe that the Department of Health is largely to blame for the failure to ensure natural, transparent justice in this affair, matters would not have got so completely out of hand after the Department’s report appeared had some of the paediatricians most critical of the clinicians in Stoke been required to defend their opinions in public then and there. This observation applies particularly to Professor Terry Stacey, one of the three members of Professor Griffiths’ enquiry team (who was appointed to direct the Central Office for Research Ethics Committees soon after this report was completed), and to Richard Nicholson, Editor of the Bulletin of Medical Ethics, who has declared confidently that CNEP was used in research without parental consent (5). The clinicians in Stoke should be assumed to be innocent of this charge unless a proper investigation, conducted in public, reveals otherwise. Iain Chalmers and Edmund Hey References 1 Griffiths R. On drinking from a poisoned chalice. bmj.com, 1 April 2006. 2 Griffiths R. CNEP and research governance. Lancet 2006;367:1037–8. 3 Hey E, Chalmers I. Are any of the criticisms of the CNEP trial true? Lancet 2006;367:1032–3. 4 Hey E. The 1996 Continuous Negative Extrathoracic Pressure (CNEP) trial: were parents’ allegations of research fraud fraudulent? (in press) [Subsequently published in Pediatrics 2006;117;2244-2246] 5 Nicholson R. Editorial. Bulletin of Medical Ethics May 2003, p 1. Competing interests: None declared Editor’s note: This response was submitted in April 2006, but technical problems relating to the fact that the article which it was responding to had been posted as a webextra article meant that the response couldn't be displayed.

See editor's footnote to that article for further explanation - http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/337/oct31_2/a2347 This article has now been republished as a stand alone article, making it possible to post rapid responses to it.

NMC IS PANTS

Exhibit A
NMC Hearing October 2008

The NMC is apparently the Nursing and Midwifery Council. They are apparently the GMC in drag. The NMC doesn't do many useful things apart from sit there looking pretty. Those of us who are rather astute in these matters will remember the whistleblowers over at the NMC earlier on this year. This is what they said

"The NMC appears to be a fundamentally dysfunctional organisation, where the priority of those in charge of the organisation is to maintain the status quo at the expense of proper transparency and good governance."

The MP then said as follows "there appeared to be "an ingrained culture of bullying and racism as a means of preventing good governance in general and, in particular, any proper examination of what is going on".

OMG OMG does that sound like the General Medical Council? Surely not!

Anyway, at 5am this morning, I was sent a small piece from the Sun newspapers. There is a minor issue of the nurses pants under display at the NMC of late.

"A NURSE faces a hospital ban after selling her KNICKERS on eBay.Sheena McMillan, 24, charged £20 for a clean pair and £23 for those she had worn, a disciplinary hearing heard yesterday.The Nursing and Midwifery Council in London heard how Staff Nurse Sheena ran her sordid business from Derriford Hospital, Plymouth.But she was rumbled after a kinky email titled “Naughty Knicks” triggered the hospital’s automatic alert system"

So while poor Sheena McMillan is briefly in trouble, I wanted to make a few comments about the NMC's actions on nurses who are truly incompetent. The email below is self explanatory. It concerns the crap nursing qualities of the now defunct Ward 87. The report outlined the catastrophic failures in nursing. Further documentation can be found here. It is fair to say that while knickers are of vital importance to the NMC, patient deaths aren't.

The NMC failed to grasp the basics of these reports and initially threw the complaint out [ after lounging around since 2005]. They then made the wonderful excuse of " We can't find the nurse gov". This was of course until I sent them the entertaining email below. It outlines the sheer stupidity of an organisation who in 4 or more years has failed to allow any accountability for the substandard nursing on Ward 87. So despite findings against these nurses, the NMC turned a blind eye. I couldn't really make up my mind whether they were just stupid or dim or perhaps both. Of course, North Staffordshire NHS Trust has managed to block any meaningful independent scrutiny of the catastrophe they themselves overlooked for 10 years or more.

We should remember that the Royal College of Nursing and the NMC were present during the 2001 inquiry. They clearly all sat there in their pretty little nursey uniforms and did sweet FA.

So while they drag poor Sheena down their procedures, they should spare a thought for the really dysfunctional, half witted, idiotic, vindictive and malicious nurses who caused the deaths of thousands of people on ward 87, then attempted to frame me for something I didn't do when I raised those concerns. These members of the esteemed nursing profession lied to the Health and Safety Executive [ under PACE] which probably amounts to perjury. Of course, the NMC have overlooked all this. They have said they would " consider" my email, that was many months ago. Of course, we all know that my email will be shelved because to them, hounding poor Sheena is much more beneficial than actually doing some constructive work.

This is why the blog post will be floating on the internet to remind them that I don't take well to dysfunctional regulatory bodies who are unable to do the job the tax payer pays them for. Perhaps one day they will get off their fat back sides and actually do some work.

Email to the NMC regarding Ward 87 Nurses.

----- Original Message -----
From: Rita Pal
To: Mark Mallinson ; fitness.to.practise@nmc-uk.org ; midwifery@nmc-uk.org
Sent: Thursday, February 14, 2008 9:36 PM
Subject: Re: Formal Complaint regarding Sister Paula Wright based at North Staffordshire NHS Trust


Mr Mallinson,

RE: North Staffordshire NHS Trust. Concerns regarding Ward 87 and nurses on the ward.

Thankyou for your letter dated 4th February 2008. Shortly after that I contacted you and left a phone message. You are yet to respond to this.

I wish to make a few points at this juncture

1. You state " The Nursing and Midwifery Council is unable to forward your complaint in its present form as the Trust employing nurse Wright is at the time of the allegations is unable to identify her" . The documentation within your possession refers to the nurse as " Sister P Wright". Her name was "Sister Paula Wright". The Trust has indeed identified her repeatedly in the document " Review of Standards of Care on Ward 87 Following allegations made by Dr Rita Pal". I suggest you revisit this issue again and obtain the disclosure of the identity of this nurse at the time of this matter. If you are stating that this nurse was never registered and that the Trust cannot identify her then this would be a matter of fraud and reportable to the police. Please therefore clarify this either way.

As we can both read the statutes your employers are governed by, perhaps you may familiarise yourself with. You could if you wish investigate this issue and obtain the identity of this non existent nurse who seems to have been identified in all documents in two reports at the Trust itself.

Council's power to require disclosure of information

25. - (1) For the purpose of assisting them in carrying out functions in respect of fitness to practise, a person authorised by a Practice Committee may require any person (other than the person concerned) who in his opinion is able to supply information or produce any document which appears relevant to the discharge of any such function, to supply such information or produce such a document.(2) As soon as is reasonably practicable after a decision has been made under article 22(5) or (6) to refer an allegation or other matter to a Practice Committee, the Council shall require, from the person concerned, details of - (a) any person - (i) by whom he is employed to provide services in, or in relation to, nursing or midwifery; or(ii) with whom he has an arrangement to provide such services; and (b) any body by which he is authorised to practise, in the United Kingdom or elsewhere, a health or social care profession which is regulated under any enactment.


2. You state " Also the information you have submitted does not indicate that there is any evidence that Nurse Wright fitness to practise is impaired. If your statement is correct, you are making assumptions on a nurse
a. You by your own admission in [1] are making assumptions on a person you cannot identify
b. There would be no reasons for the Trust to have " investigated this matter resulting in actions being taken in accordance to the recommendations of June 2001 Report".

3. I made the complaint as soon as I had the 2001 report disclosed in 2005. I did not make a complaint prior to that as you would not have taken it seriously.

4. You state that the "registrants fitness to practise may be impaired by "lack of competence". It is interesting Paula Wright was incompetent enough to have left an acutely ill patient on the Ward in November 1998 without any nursing support. It is also interesting that there was a wide scale lack of basic care by the nursing staff. Throughout the reports, Sister Paula Wright was criticised persistently for not following prior coaching. Indeed, in 1999 the report stated " Sister Wright is a new Ward Manager and requires coaching to develop the skills necessary to manage the ward". This of course means she DID NOT have the necessary skills to manage the Ward in 1998 when she allowed acutely ill patients to die.

5. My complaint has a wider spectrum of complaint in that the nurses on that ward made false and defamatory allegations against me when I attempted to whistleblow on these negligent aspects of the care they provided. I consider the false allegations made against me by a group of nurses to have been racist in nature.

I put it to you Mr Mallinson that you have not read the basic reports sent to you for the last year or more. The point about "investigation" is entails yourselves contacting the Trust and obtaining full documentation to investigate this issue.

You state that I did not report this to the UKCC at the time. If you look at the last page of the 2001 Report, you will note " Liz Mc Anulty" of UKCC [LM] who was present at the investigation. On the same page they identify Paul Wright as Ward Manager. Perhaps you may wish to turn to this page [46]. If you cannot locate it, I can scan this in for you from the papers you sent me.

I put it to you that the matter was never reported to you because the Trust wish to cover this matter up. That is why the Ward shut in 2005 following questions from the Coroner.

Further to the above, I would like to make a formal complaint
1. Regarding you. Please forward this to your manager immediately. Please confirm you have done so.
2. I would like your absurd decision reviewed because you clearly are incapable of assimilating and analysing the information presented to you. Clearly, a year does not seem to be enough for you to read a few sheets of paper.
3. I would like you to give me the details of your solicitors. Given the unreasonable time frame etc, I believe we do need to issue a pre-action protocol for judicial review against the NMC. I would like to issue a letter of claim.

I have never observed such incompetence in the assessment of a complaint [ that has two reports and one expert report backing it]. As you have delayed matters considerably, perhaps you would be kind enough to respond to this email immediately. May I suggest you read the papers sent to you before dismissing the complaint.

I hope to hear from you. If I do not hear from you , I intend to fax this complaint to all sectors of your offices until such time as you do respond meaningfully.


Regards

Dr Rita Pal

North Staffordshire NHS Trust Lies to the Police About Ward 87 Death Rate.

Internal Discussions Regarding the Lack of Mortality Statistics

The important aspect about Ward 87 is the fact that its death rate was never recorded. The emails below stipulated that "The Information is not routinely recorded"

So, why am I talking about this issue 10 years down the line? Well, death rate is important. It tells us whether there are any particular problems in a ward. Death rate is also known as Mortality Rate. Anyone who has done statistics knows the calculation. That is everyone apart from the Trust minions at North Staffordshire NHS Trust who cleverly hoodwinked the police when they attended a few years ago. Ken Raper, a senior officer is of the view that he believes in justice. Ken Raper, a senior police officer cannot tell when a Trust is pulling the wool over his eyes. Perhaps Ken simply wants the wool pulled over his eyes. Afterall, he does not have to investigate what he ignores. It was similar to Staffordshire Police's contact with the Trust some years ago. They rang the Trust up and stated " Are there any problems with patient care". The Trust responded " No". The Police said " Ok, let us know if there are any problems". It is a bit like the police asking a criminal to report his crimes. The precedent here in any investigation of corporate manslaughter is this - the hospital can make up any statistics, the police will never check it and will believe it completely. In their view, Trusts never lie :). Of course, North Staffordshire NHS Trust didn't only harbour a terrorist in their heyday but continuously lie.

The first time I met Mr Raper was at a small town likened to Midsummer Murders. Raper never had any intention of investigating. He had every intention of charming his way out of a inconvenient situation and providing the cup of sympathy for the plight of whistleblower. Raper though is clever. He crowed away about how they were the best police force in town. Of course, this wonderful police force had no idea about death rate or how it was calculated. They neither checked the figures nor did they bother about whether it was accurate or not. So, while he was being clever, I faced him with the Statistics question. There was that blank look that the police give you until they shove you out of the room :).

Raper was told by Staffordshire Police to keep a lid on this issue. He did that almost charmingly. The death he refused to consider is currently being considered by other parties :). Anyway, I felt it was entertaining to feature the internal discussions at the Trust about their failure to keep death rates regarding the ward. Was it because people died like flies and no one kept a track?

Of course, death rates are important. Calculating the right death rates with the right formulae is also important. Neither the Police or the Trust did this. I say this of course because Ward 87 is just one ward. It is not compulsory to record the death rate of patients nationwide. So the broad spectrum outlook on this issue is this - if it is not recorded, there is no way of detecting poor levels of care for improvement, moreover there is no way of detecting the next Harold Shipman. So mortality statistics is another concept omitted by the Shipman Inquiry.

Essentially, in this case, Ken Raper never sought a medical opinion, he never sought a statistics opinion, he never sought to interview relevant people and he never sought to obtain the internal documents within the Trust. He based his decision on a half baked redacted copy :). I obtained most of it through the Information Commissioner after my meeting with Ken Raper. Ken Raper and Staffordshire Police failed to do so. That of course is the standard of the police today. To complete matters, I reported these issues to his Chief Constable. Of course, his Chief Constable was so embarassed that he hid under his table and still has not mustered up the courage to respond - probably because he cannot find his pen after 2 years. So, for all those who do visit Staffordshire Police, just remember, do be ready for the Keystone Cops.

As I explained to Raper before I left, this is on his conscience because I discharged my responsibility in 1998. The fact that thousands died unnecessarily due to corporate manslaughter is irrelevant to Mr Raper :). As I drove back from our last meeting, I had hoped that when he is an elderly man in his eighties, he is placed in a ward like Ward 87 and left to lie in his urine, left to be infected with MRSA and he may meet the same fate as many patients on Ward 87. And when he dies, no one will care just like the destinity of those on Ward 87. I am of course a great believer in karma and a good observer of human behaviour. I also know the difference between death rate and simply writing down "numbers". The detectives clearly failed to spot the difference :).

Teresa Fenech - Thankyou.

Ward 87 - Closed in 2005. Isolated from the rest of the hospital

Visit to Ward 87

The important issue to remember here is the fact that I had more investigations done against me [and reports written about me] than Dr Harold Shipman. I think this is an important aspect of whistleblowing to understand. The above report was an internal document written by Teresa Fenech [who lets face it was very good at her job]. These documents and findings were kept away from me and the General Medical Council until about 2005/2006 when they accidentally ended up in a letter addressed to me. I realised then that between 1998-2006, the Trust had

1. Made a number of false accusations against me to the Department of Health and the GMC. They had repeatedly attempted to drag me down the GMC procedures but each attempt so far has failed miserably.

2. Written various reports about me mostly done by Drs Colin Campbell and Keith Prowse. They both ensured lots of spectres were raised about me in all quarters thereby diverting the responsibility from them to the scrutiny of me. The recruitment of doctors where therefore not affected. Their main aim was to preserve this.

3. Had told Professor Griffiths to raise a spectre over my apparent stress or mental illness. Of course, life would have been easier for them had I developed an illness convenient to their cause but I didn't. David Fillingham and Professor Griffiths were on first named terms.

4. The investigation instigated by the GMC via Professor Griffiths resulted in " No concerns verified". Essentially, Professor Griffith's finding was diametrically opposite to the internal Trust documents. David Fillingham and Professor Griffiths had ensured the GMC was not aware that I was right in any way. By doing this, all the senior doctors at North Staffordshire NHS Trust were protected.

5. In summary, the Trust had undermined my ability, character assassinated me, implied that I was somehow less competent than anyone else and instigated a series of events that would finally culminate in litigation against the GMC and a subsequent win.

6. It is now 2008, 10 years after the event. The Trust, the GMC and the Department of Health still hold the false accusations made against me. These accusations have no evidential basis and neither were any of them upheld. The Trust though believes that the more rubbish they spew against my name, the better it looks for them.

7. For challenging this issue, Professor Griffiths in 2005/2006 threatened to issue an alert letter against my name. I told him to put up or shut up. He decided on shutting up. Professor Griffiths and Professor Temple had offices right next to each other at the University of Birmingham and they were both involved with business of junior doctor recruitment.

It was startlingly clear that the Trust had secretly attempted what we call " damage control". They had attempted to solve the issue internally while also sitting on the fence and ensuring their whistleblower would always be fighting against a tirade of accusations. Character assassination, the spread of rumours is a convenient manner for the Trust to ensure that no authority takes these issues seriously. It is also convenient to ensure that the media does not take these issues seriously.

While the above documentation was being written, the senior doctors responsible for me were busily writing all sorts of long reports about me. One was written by Colin Campbell, then another by West Midlands Deanery and more were written by University of London. In each report they struggled to find something wrong with my work but felt they would write something suitably cutting eg that I was young, that I was apparently not as good as my colleagues etc. Of course, as evidence and references will later be shown, I was infact as good as my colleagues, often covered for them and at the time fairly competent at my job. If I wasn't then I would never have recognised the serious clinical risk that was posed to patients.

The reports for me was a bit like being stripped naked and analysed from top to toe. The senior doctors responsible for Ward 87 eg Dr Monica Spitieri got away lightly because her conduct was never analysed to any extent. No one saw any reports written about Monica Spitieri. Infact, no one was ready to publicly criticise someone who was so inept at her job. Yet, it was Dr Spitieri who had overlooked the serious concerns above. It was Dr Spitieri who did not raise concerns about the substandard lack of care. It was Monica Spitieri who did not report the death of EP to the Coroner. Essentially, all the problems on the ward were her responsibility. Of course, the conduct of the Trust in scrutinising, undermining and analysing me in this way is something I have never forgiven. Infact, defending yourself against these speculative, non evidential allegations is a huge task for any young doctor.


I am also unlikely to allow them to forget their actions against a whistleblower who raised concerns about problems they already knew about. We all move on in life as I have but we never forget. The issue about this whistleblowing story is that it is very similar to many in the NHS. The difference is of course is whistleblowers are often too crippled with fear to speak out about it in any way. I though believe that every lesson is learned by understanding certain situations. I certainly don't believe the NHS is ready for transparency or whistleblowing. Their reaction to this website for instance is irritation.


At no time did the Trust ever disclose the above documents to me and neither did they ever apologise for their behaviour. As the reader can see, even in 1999, the serious problems on the ward continued. These problems did not improve even after the 2001 Report by Dr John Creamer. The question we ask ourselves of course is this - this was an acute ward, people were ill and how many people's lives were compromised because of these serious problems? The answer here is that no one knows. The reason for this of course is that they all spent masses of their time writing long reports, speculating over my character, the type of person I was, my ability and ignored the real issues that were at stake. They did attempt a " patching up or a correction" of matters but the ward should have been shut down immediately. It wasn't.


The impression that is created is this - a renegade whistleblower arrived in 1998 and that was when the problems started. The reality of course is that the problems on that ward were serious for about 10 years [or more] before me when patients died and nothing was done. That is of course the issue here. Again wider data was never assessed or analysed. It would be impossible for acutely ill patients to survive the negligence as described above. They didn't survive. A few months before I came to work on Ward 87, I attended an arrest in the middle of the night. A young man had a cardiac arrest. I later found out was that no one had checked his INR for a week. These episodes were always the case. It was common, everyone knew it was common and the implication to the media was that this was " just another elderly care ward" but it wasn't an elderly care ward, it was a acute ward filled with patients of all ages. The maximum number of cardiac arrests were always on that ward. Everyone knew that. Anecdotal evidence is interesting because it also shows the true extent of the failures on this ward. What is interesting is that patients or their relatives were never interviewed as part of the 1999 or 2001 investigations. People died, the problems were overlooked and that was the culture much like it is in the NHS in general. The way the Trust gets around this issue is that it tells the world that " things have improved". When that is said, it creates a false sense of security that all is well. Of course, the reality is far from that simple.

As you can observe these lazy, incompetent, nurses were never held accountable by the NMC. Infact, when a complaint was raised, North Staffordshire NHS Trust told the NMC that they could not find or locate the identity or existence of Sister Paula Wright. As everyone can see, the document above lists her name right on the top of the memo. The ward had been besieged with patient complaints and Teresa hints at this. It was also plagued with litigation that no doubt the Trust settled.

The doctors were never held accountable either. Dr Green walked off to the Nuffield Hospital and quite happily exists there, Dr Spitieri walked off to Keele University and is current a professor.

We compare this to Dr Southall - where all inquiries have cleared his work in the last 20 years. He was stripped of his Professor Title at Keele. We then compare the death rates that Dr Spitieri and Dr Green were responsible for. The death toll for these two doctors is far far higher than anything Dr Southall was responsible for. Dr Spitieri or Dr Green have never been subjected to the sort of scrutiny or public vilification bestowed upon Dr Southall. Yet, it is these two doctors who should have been struck off the medical register in the public interest. It was not in the public's interest to keep silent about the level of neglect on Ward 87. While we watch the spectacle at the GMC today we should spare a thought for the patients who died on Ward 87.

For those patients who died on Ward 87 there has never been any accountability. The GMC has not acted in the public interest.

Minority Report

Flow Chart From the Minority Report describing an Emergency without Equipment

As a whistleblower, it amazes me that the health service places the onus on you to come up with the data to establish the truthfulness of the whistleblowing incident. Real life of course is never that simple. For me, I was on Ward 87 for a every short time - probably about three weeks. The rota was very busy and all I had was the patient lists that I used during the ward rounds. Later these lists of patients would come to be criticised by Professor Griffiths as "disorganised", possibly because they were not on a typed sheet of paper. But then only those who never do clinical work have typed sheets of paper or have time to have these sheets of paper. I had oncalls to do, patients to take care of, I was working 110 hours a week and I didn't have time to eat or sleep never mind type up evidence. How does a whistleblower know that their concerns will not be taken seriously and that they will have to fight a decade to prove their innocence? I was what I term an accidental whistleblower. I did not consciously wake up one morning and say " Right, today is a sunny day, I have decided to whistleblow". My mind set was this " I was in an emergency, patients were dying, I needed equipment, patients needed care and if there was no one else to do it, I had to do it because it was my job" . I didn't think about the repurcussions of asking for more equipment. I thought it would simply be acknowledged and given. I didn't know the Trust would turn into a psychotic mongoose on acid and chase after me. I didn't even know that they would perceive it as a sin. To me, I was doing my job. The job I was paid to do - that was to ensure that on my shift no one died due to negligent care. Infact, I can safely say no one has died on my shift due to negligent care in the 10 years I have been in medicine.


I had a list of about 20-30 patients if that and my memory. Luckily, I also armed myself with a photocopy of one set of my writing in the patient notes. It occurred to me when I was with Joan signing the death certificates that a minor frenzy was developing that may explode into a small nuclear bomb. People were fizzing away and Joan told me I had to look after myself and have evidence of what had happened. That is what I did. I took the evidence and thankfully so. Joan the bereavement officer was a wise lady. The photocopy was done and slipped into my white coat pocket and it was that photocopy that has saved me through all these years. No one has been able to answer why there was no basic equipment, why there was no supervision, why there were no nurses on an acute ward. Later on in this blog, I shall also show the letter written by Professor Brenton who was critical of the care given by Ward 87. Later Professor Steve Bolsin was to support me.


I had made entries in other patient records about the negligent behaviour of the nursing staff but during the 2001 Report that verified my concerns, I realised that the nurses had doctored the material, removed incriminating observation charts and basically done what we call a " cover up job". I suspect it was important for these nurses [ who I shall name soon] to do a cover up job because that is the only way their gross neglect of patients would be concealed. Everyone knew these nurses were lazy, they were negligent and they were obtuse. Even worse, they had no insight into their failings. They lied so much that I am sure each of them had long noses at the end of every shift. It was a dysfunctional ward with dysfunctional people who thought it would be amusing to frame me for something I didn't do to save their own rotten skin. As women often do, they got together in a gaggle and lied in all the statements they gave to the Health and Safety Executive. Of course, lying together and effectively perverting the course of justice goes unnoticed. In the NHS lying together is equivalent to the truth. That is what they thought anyway. Have I forgiven them? Possibly not. Afterall, I believe in equality. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Its physics simplified. As nurses, they should have known about physics before executing their plan of action.


The head of these nurses was Paula Wright. Paula Wright's name is all over the Report, all over the investigation charts and everyone knew she existed. When the NMC [ Nursing and Midwifery Council] asked North Staffordshire NHS Trust about her, the hospital pretended that they could find no record of her. Paula Wright and her negligent behaviour was supported by the head of nursing Mrs Boon. Mrs Boon of course was the lady that was amazed that I had asked for more nursing staff, more equipment and more care for the patients on that ward. That too because Paula Wright had asked me to contact Mrs Boon but later denied it. Mrs Boon had been outraged about this simple request and turned into such a huge fuss. In all honesty, had she just provided the nurses, the equipment and the basic care required in this third world ward, there would be no requirement for the media, for blogs like this nor would there have been a need for anything. We could have all gone our separate ways and led happy lives. Nevertheless, I am here to tell her that I was right and SHE was wrong. It may well have been many years down the line but its better late than never. All managers especially nursing management need to be accountable to the public.

Of course, for Mrs Boon her own incompetence shone through. Paula Wright was a weak ineffective nurse manager. I have no idea whether her little blonde crop had anything to do with it. A mentally vacant lady who was in too deep but didn't know what was right or wrong. They all had tea with the consultant of the ward Dr Spitieri, a doctor with very little in the way of communication skills. She was a short tubby little thing who was more concerned that there was so much litigation on the ward to worry about patient care. On our induction day, that is what she had told us - we had an induction on all the litigation that was present on the ward and why we should record all blood test results in the book because " The last junior forgot and resulted in litigation".


Mrs Boon, Dr Spitieri and Paula Wright were really a trio. As women they talked too much and didn't do enough work. It was of course ironic that Dr Monica SPITieri was head of a Respiratory Ward. The important thing about these three women is that they should have been housewives and not been given the role of taking care of so many sick people. More sick people died than lived on Ward 87. We all knew that. They were of course the three who mismanaged the entire situation and were later criticised heavily for it. They were also prone to lying. Lying is an interesting phenomenon. People do it when they are in a bit of a position. They also do it because they can get away with it. As a young doctor, I never realised how well and convincingly people could lie. The trio had then turned me into their problem. The problem with turning me into a problem is that people tend to defend themselves. I suspect that is not what they had expected. Afterall, they had ruined the lives of a number of junior doctors before me - all gleefully of course. I am positive they could not help their behavioural tendencies. It was the culture in North Staffordshire NHS Trust at the time. A culture of frenzy and madness where the distinction between the truth and lies was blurred for all of them.


There has never been any broader data study done on the Ward. It was on the strength of my small amount of data that I managed to stuff into my bag/pocket on the day I left the hospital that has provided me with the armoury to fight. It is of course amazing that so many problems were found on minority data which begs the question, how bad were the problems on wider data? Attempting to get North Staffordshire NHS Trust or anyone else to open the files of North Staffordshire NHS Trust is a major task. Infact, in 10 years I have not managed it. I shall list the organisations as follows

In summary, all these reports were done on Minority Data. No Majority Data was ever considered or used. Overall, there has never been a wider investigation on the ward. There never will be.

1. North Staffordshire NHS Trust

1999 Review of Ward 87 Plus 2001 Creamer Report. Done on minority data. No wider data was never examined.

2. Health Commission

Advised that whistleblowers cannot raise concerns. Only relatives of the ward can. No wider data study was never done.

3. Health Ombudsman

Advised that the time frame was too long and it is not in the public interest to do any wider data study.

4. Coroner

Whistleblowers cannot raise concerns because they are not termed as the " interested party".

5. General Medical Council

Did not understand the concept of "wider data" and refused to instigate or obtain any documentation from North Staffordshire NHS Trust

6. NMC

Still contemplating

7. Police

The police had amusingly contacted the hospital and said " Is there any Crime". The Hospital rang the police back and said " No". [they admitted to this in the 2001 report]. The police shut the file down.

I then met Ken Raper of Staffordshire Police refused to inform any of the relatives as he said it was not in the public interest to do so. There are some amusing tape recordings with the police which I must put up online just for entertainment value. Ken Raper was not allowed to see the hard copy of the records of death. The hospital supplied him with some figures and glossed over the fact that they were not " death rates" and statistically their figures meant nothing.


Raper though refused to obtain a full unredacted copy of the report and did not question the hospital. The flaws within his investigation had been pointed out but Staffordshire Police still have not responded to the letter after a year or more. No finding was made from the investigation if we can call it that. Ken Raper refused to look into one patient's medical notes, refused to check her death certificate and basically refused to do anything that resembled hard work. What he decided to do was tell me all about David Southall. Ken Raper is though a nice man instructed by the top powers that be to shut down any investigation. Infact, there was no investigation apart from what Ken thought would keep me quiet. For a police man, on occasion he isn't very astute but always amused me as a man trying to keep all sides happy but not quite balancing the issues of public interest. His charm of sympathising with me and talking about how badly whistleblowers were treated just didn't wash with me. I needed the files in North Staffordshire NHS Trust as a wider data study to be opened. There was a case for Corporate Manslaughter here but no one wanted to investigate it.

I then asked these 6 organisations to tell the relatives about the 1999 and 2001 Reports that verified my concerns. The Trust and ALL organisations unanimously refused to inform any relatives of the issues at stake.

Following this refusal, I decided to ask the Sentinel to advertise a version of the online report. The Sentinel and Tim Berrisford refused. No reason was given of course.

The summary of the above is this, I was of course right about my concerns on Ward 87 but no one wanted to look at the wider data. As time has moved on, the excuse made was that it was"too long ago". Effectively, we observe a mass shut down and silencing of any concerns or subsequent accountability. The managers are responsible but the senior doctors followed much like sheep. This is of course the reason why no doctor should ever whistleblow. There was never any accountability for the management who caused the deaths of these patients. The managers consisted of doctors as well as lay people.

More people died on this Ward than the Bristol Inquiry. The difference is of course that these were young and elderly patients. They do not command the same heart strings effect on the media has say children's hearts. Steve Bolsin told me that and he was right. The excuse the Trust would use is that they would have died anyway.

My question is " Would they have died?". In the minority report, those who had been neglected could have survived. The problem though with patient deaths on a ward is that life moves on much like a factory. The reports to the coroner are dependant on the RMO and if that RMO wants to cover the issue up then there is no other option. In the one patient that the coroner considered, Dr Spitieri had not reported her death. Of course, by law it was her responsibility. The Coroner though did not wish to criticise her or anyone within the hospital for their lack of reporting these incidents.


In the end, the documentation etc was obtained because I was curious to find out whether the Bristol Inquiry or the Shipman Inquiry had changed anything in the NHS. This material comes parallel between the two and occurred during the two high profile cases. It also shows us that as a whisteblower, you have very little rights and there is no procedure to effectively raise your concerns so that a full investigation is done. As a whistleblower, the NHS does not even entitle you to the Report that establishes the concerns.


The onus was left to me to collect the mass data which is impossible to obtain once you do not work there anymore. Amusingly, more investigations have been done on me over the years by the GMC [on my written work] than the matters I whistleblew on. It is also a case that shows that the whistleblower cannot and should not report their concerns because on every occasion their personality, their credibility and their evidence is attacked and undermined. In the end, you end up not only fighting for justice for a group of patients [ who don't even know you are fighting] but fighting to regain back your own credibility. By then, the authorities have spread so many untrue rumours that it is impossible to fight through the thick fog.

No medical whistleblower currently survives in the UK. Most have quietened down and stopped raising issues and concerns. The BMA Conference in the year 2000 showed the impact of whistleblowing on the lives of doctors. My case happened by accident. I didn't even realise that asking for more equipment was whistleblowing. It just goes to show how one spur of the moment decision to ask for more equipment can suddenly spiral out of control. Nothing is therefore ever certain in life.

Ward 87 was shut in 2005 on the same year the Trust squealed about releasing the redacted 2001 Report to me. To them all, shutting the ward would make the problem go away. Infact, we can apply that to any ward in the NHS with a high death rate - get rid of the evidence and no one will find out how many people really died. That is what happened on Ward 87.