Freedom of information act and NHS staff records

[flyingdoc]

IMHO you have no right to enquire into these peoples personal employment records.

[flyingdoc]

In this case it sounds as if there are issues with those responsible for recruitment and supervision.

I think you are jumping to some hefty conclusions, based on one persons opinion of a single practitioner, especially as this is a newly qualified person who perhaps required more experience.

 

You have absolutely no idea why the other people left the service, it could have been totally coincidental.

 

I agree that if the patient is concerned regarding the treatment she received she has a right to complain and I would initially talk to the PALS service at the hospital and if you dont get a satisfactory response then escalate it as described.

[flyingdoc]

I have absolutely no problem with people making valid complaints regarding care they have (or have not) received, I have myself assisted people to do just that.

Complaints are vital to ensure that standards of care are maintained and improved in a health service that is profoundly failing those it was created to serve.

I worked in the health service for many years and I agree that PALS are a complete waste of time, but it is the first line of any complaint and therefore you have to start there.

Its interesting you feel that there is a circle the wagons culture as from the other side it felt quite the reverse, in fact I had to strenuously defend a member of my staff (I was a ward manager) regarding a complaint that was completely unfounded, but the PALS service had issued a full apology for, leading the complainant to publish the story in the local press. I was incensed.

There are deep seated problems in the health service - and from a clinical point of view - far too much money spent on "PR and image" and far too little spent on clinical care. And a percentage of the money allocated to clinical care is wasted through stupid segregationalist budgeting along with other practices which I will not go into as I have no desire to be sued for libel.

While I have no love of the "Machine" that is the NHS I still have a great affection for the staff who do a very difficult job for an increasingly demanding and ungrateful population.

Nurses in casualty are more likely to get assaulted than police officers in the course of their duty.

you save someones life and instead of thanking you - you get sued because in the melee of their emergency, somone mislaid their pyjama top!

I have no illusions that there are some staff, who need to be challenged in their behaviour (whatever their role) but also consider that this clinician who is listed in this post may well have been newly qualified, and forced into a situation for which they had neither the training or experience, with inadequate resources or supervision.

Complain Please - get the situation changed, but complain objectively, cite your reasons for complaint, your concerns regarding the specific clinician. If you get nothing more than a soothing letter (standard first response) then take it higher - see NHS complaints procedure : Department of Health - Managing your organisation

dont make it a personal attack on the individual - make it a complaint about the standards of care supplied by the NHS.

[flyingdoc]

You are correct - I am no longer working for the NHS I got so sick of being held responsible for the failings of a corrupt and incompetent administration.

 

I could write a book - but I wont - its just depressing.

 

It doesnt pay to challenge these practices - things do not change - you just end up either being hounded out or worse.

 

The bottom line is that with one hand the government is making individual practitioners responsible and accountable, while taking all the resources away from them which would enable them to do the job, with the other.

 

Staff in the NHS are like the crew of the titanc, bailing furiously with seives.

 

the ship is sinking and unfortunately most of them will go down with it.

[flyingdoc]

Again alex - I would defend to my last breath the right of the individual practitioner his/her right to privacy.

 

They should give you information insofar as it relates directly to you.

 

You also have a right to see your medical records should you require.

 

You should not be able to access information regarding the work. or disciplinary record of a person where the information has no connection with you personally.

[flyingdoc]

Shipman was allowed to continue because the monitoring mechanisms that should have been in place failed.

 

This again is something to do with the status that the Medical Profession still holds to itself. and woe betide any other health profession that dares to question a Doctor.

 

As Erica says this is a totally different kettle of fish - and you are, I fear, unhappy because you are not getting the answers that you want.

 

I am sorry if my answers displease you but I know that if personal information about Healthcare Professionals was published in the way that you seem to think you are entitled to - there would be many that would simply stop working in healthcare and those that remained would be persecuted by unhappy and often vindictive complainents.

 

There was a move a couple of years ago to make Nurses home addresses available on the Nursing Register so that you could literaly look up where any registered nurse lived.

 

Had this been passed then I am certain that the number of UK nurses in the profession would have plummeted and the number of attacks on nurses would have spiralled.

 

I dont see why you think that your rights should outweigh anyone elses.

[flyingdoc]

You are entitled?

What is it exactly that you think you are entitled to?

Are you entitled to know the disciplinary record of the person who butchers the meat in the supermarket you use, or perhaps the driver of the bus you ride( you do entrust your lives to these people also, or not to poison you or crash the bus)

You have the right to make complaints and you have the right to information in the public domain (league tables) you also have the right to see your own notes (or such notes as your doctor deems you can see) and any data particularly relating to you.

However I do not see why any person who chooses to work in healhcare should be required to give up their personal rights.

I am personally sick to death of people who seem to think that just because you are their Nurse/Doctor or carer that they in some way own you.

Pursue your complaint - I urge you, this is the only way that improvements may be made - but in doing so dont trample the rights of the people who work very difficult circumstances.

[flyingdoc]

Healthcare professionals are accountable to a higher standard as they should be - but they are judged by those qualified to do so not just by "bods off the street" which is, with the greatest respect what you are.

 

Just because you have been treated by a particular specialist, you feel you are qualified to judge them? I think not.

You are qualified to give your opinion of a practitioner whom you have seen but that will hardly be a qualified and balanced one - rather one based on a single patients experience.

[flyingdoc]

if you want to know what has happened to other patients then what you need to do is perhaps websearch it and/or post information on a health centered webblog and allow others to tell you their experience.

 

Your g/f doctorate will enable her to give qualified opinion in her field, but as you say not about your experience.

 

I apologise if I appear to be overly defensive here but as a healthcare professional whose rights have been continually abused by the service and who has been physically, verbally and professionally abused by those who I was supposed to be helping any attack on what little privacy we have left is particularly galling to me.

 

All the changes that have come about in the health service have, with much justification, been regarding patients - with no thought to the additional pressure, workload, responsibilities and indignity that the staff would have to suffer to make it work.

 

I personally had had enough and got out. Many with far more dedication than me have stayed.

[flyingdoc]

if you are still fighting this - I am aware that some solicitors are taking these cases on on a no win no fee basis to get back monies that you have already spent.