Stafford Hospital, so many looking…nobody saw

Yesterday we briefly debated in the County Chamber the awful news around the failures up to early 2008 at Stafford Hospital.

It was in advance of the County Council’s Health Scrutiny Committee meeting to gather detailed evidence on the 9th April when the current top management from the hospital and Trust Board will be questioned. That meeting at County Buildings will be the first to broadcast live using new webcasting technology… so anyone with Broadband can watch it.

Labour County Councillor Jim Muir, who is Chairman of the County’s Health Scrutiny Committee, spoke about some of the main issues yesterday although I’m still not clear if his committee should have picked up on any of the signs before they were found by the Healthcare Commission inspectors.

I don’t subscribe to the mindset that Government targets were entirely to blame. Target chasing is clearly a nonsense if taken to the extreme and it is up to local hospital management and governance arrangements to balance the primary responsibility of good patient care with performance measured against targets.

Some of the practises at Stafford Hospital of moving A&E patients around to meet waiting time targets were beyond belief. No organisation with a fundamental grip on its primary function would go to the extremes which were happening there.

From what I can see of the Stafford Hospital debacle there were several different bodies looking at the work of the hospital with none of them actually seeing anything. And with so many scrutineers, from patients’ groups to the hospital board, to the County’s Health Scrutiny and national inspectorates there is inbuilt doubt at who really does what and, more importantly, who is best placed to do the job properly locally and regularly.

This Government is creating more and more bodies to look at more and more organisations in the public sector. It may create the impression of openness and accountability but there would be much greater actual accountability if oversight was simplified in, for instance, the health sector if bodies such as the County’s Health Scrutiny who have an electoral mandate were statutorily tasked rather than being one of several semi-casual observers.

There has already been a convenient ambiguity over who should have had their eye on the ball here and it has allowed an element of buck passing. But, what is not in doubt is the direct responsibility for appalling management lies firmly with the ex-hospital management. 

You can watch what should be an interesting Health Scrutiny Committee meeting on the 9th either in person at Stafford or via the County’s webcast at www.staffordshire.gov.uk

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