Doctors at a hospital accused of bullying its staff have told the NHS care regulator that they are too scared to report lapses in patient safety in case they end up facing disciplinary action.
The Guardian revealed on Wednesday that West Suffolk hospital stands accused by its own medics of secrecy, bullying and intimidation after it demanded they take fingerprint tests in its effort to identify a whistleblower.
Senior staff at what is health secretary Matt Hancock’s local hospital have privately passed on serious concerns to the Care Quality Commission about the behaviour of the trust’s leadership.
They used confidential meetings with CQC inspectors, who visited twice in the autumn, to explain why they lack confidence in Steve Dunn, the trust’s chief executive, Dr Nick Jenkins, its medical director, and Sheila Childerhouse, who chairs the hospital’s board.
The CQC is due to publish its report into the trust, including the performance of its leadership, in January.
“Staff are scared that they’ll face disciplinary action [if they raise concerns about patient safety],” said one doctor, who declined to be named.
“As a result of recent events I can’t imagine that anyone at the trust will feel comfortable to speak out or whistleblow in the future. I fear that any future patient safety concerns will not be expressed and will simply be brushed under the carpet.”
The trust demanded fingerprints and handwriting samples after a staff member wrote anonymously to the family of Susan Warby, who died in August 2018 after undergoing treatment at the hospital, which was investigated as a “serious incident”.
The trust’s demands had created “an air of suspicion about everyone [and] a toxic environment”, with doctors angry at being “leaned on” to supply fingerprints.
Patient safety campaigners voiced dismay at the trust’s behaviour, which it insists was approved by NHS bosses nationally.
Julie Bailey, who helped expose the Mid Staffordshire hospital care scandal, tweeted the Guardian’s story to Lady Dido Harding, the chair of NHS Improvement, saying: “This is quite extraordinary. Hardly going to do much for NHS retention if staff are terrorised in this outlandish way”.
David Drew, an ex-paediatrician who left the NHS after becoming a whistleblower, said the trust’s actions seemed to breach the health service’s duty to protect whistleblowers, which was strengthened after the Mid Staffs scandal.
NHS trusts are meant to be open about failings in care and learn from them, rather than cover them up or discipline whistleblowers.
Another staff member said: “My colleagues in the hospital’s surgical department have been hung out to dry over this [Warby’s care]. Someone went to the family directly because they didn’t feel the processes in the trust would investigate the safety issues effectively.”
Staff say their morale has been badly damaged by the affair, with staff feeling “targeted” for airing concerns.
In September the trust’s medical staff committee, which represents its doctors, wrote to Childerhouse telling her that at its recent meeting “grave concerns were raised by multiple departments in regard to the culture and behaviours within the executive body of the trust, which have not seemed to endorse the trust values of freedom to speak up at multiple occasions”. It is not known if or how Childerhouse responded.
The Guardian revealed that Hancock had failed to respond to people raising concerns about the trust’s alleged bullying and harassment, despite his professed support and admiration for NHS whistleblowers.
Dunn was awarded a CBE last year for his services to health and patient safety.
A spokesperson for West Suffolk trust said: “We have a number of methods in place for staff to anonymously report patient safety concerns to the organisation, so that staff always have a way of speaking up, and our doctors routinely report concerns to us as is their professional duty.
“Any allegations that our staff have been bullied are taken extremely seriously and are investigated, which is one of the reasons why we are among the top five NHS trusts in the country for having engaged, happy, and empowered staff. We will continue to reflect as an organisation to address the concerns raised.”
