‘Rotten to the core’: Lead governor of East Kent Hospitals Trust resigned just HOURS before release of ‘harrowing’ report into maternity care – accusing bosses of ‘bullying’ and trying to ‘cover-up’ devastating scandal
- Trust Governor resigns as ‘harrowing’ report into maternity safety is published
- Alex Lister called for the NHS hospital to replace ‘spin doctors with real doctors’
- He also alleged that some staff that tried to cover-up scandal remain in post
The governor of East Kent Hospitals Trust today resigned ahead of the publication of a ‘harrowing’ report into a decade of maternity failings.
Alex Lister claimed there was a ‘cancer at the top of the organisation’, accusing trust bosses of continuing to ‘mislead, obfuscate, bully and conceal vital information’.
He said the trust’s communications were ‘rotten to the core’.
In a brutal resignation letter leaked this morning, he said: ‘For the sake of our NHS heroes, the bereaved families, the children who will never grow up, and the public who rely on us, you must clean house.
‘Replace the spin doctors with real doctors and be brave enough to say publicly what we all believe to be true.
‘I believe officials on six-figure salaries continue to mislead, obfuscate, bully and conceal vital information.’
He added that the Trust is not safe and won’t be until the Government gives it more money.
The families of two babies who died at a hospital trust under investigation for up to 200 incidents involving mothers and infants say staff blamed them
The letter, leaked to ITV and the Health Service Journal, also pays tribute to the families of the babies who died, saying without them the world would not know of the Trust’s ‘disastrous health failings’.
But he alleged that individuals involved in covering up the scandal were still employed by the Trust.
‘Yet, despite everything we now know, individuals complicit in the attempted cover-up of the maternity scandal, including the tragic case of baby Harry Richford, continue in their positions,’ he said.
However, he did praise, chair of East Kent Hospitals Niall Dickson, and the new chief executive, Tracey Fletcher.
He does, however, say that there have been some positive changes such as the appointment of Mr Dickson and the new chief executive, Tracey Fletcher but that the “cancer” remains.
Mr Lister, who is vice chair of the Liberal Democrats in Canterbury, is now calling on the Prime Minister and the Health Secretary to urgently to provide funds to modernise the East Kent’s William Harvey Hospital or commit to an entirely new hospital to be built.
It comes as the report into East Kent found that dozens of babies died or were left brain damaged by poor care at the Trust.
Dr Bill Kirkup, chairman of the independent inquiry said his panel had heard ‘harrowing’ accounts from families receiving ‘suboptimal’ care, with mothers ignored by staff and shut out from their own care.
‘An overriding theme, raised us with time and time again, is the failure of the trust’s staff to take notice of women when they raised concerns, when they questioned their care, and when they challenged the decisions that were made about their care,’ the report said.
Of 202 cases reviewed by the experts, the outcome could have been different in 97 cases, the inquiry found.
In 69 of these 97 cases, it is predicted the outcome should reasonably have been different and could have been different in a further 28 cases.
Of the 65 baby deaths examined, 45 could have had a different outcome if nationally recognised standards of care had been provided.
When looking at 33 of these 45 cases, the outcome would reasonably expected to have been different, while in a further 12 cases it might have been different.
Meanwhile, in 17 cases of brain damage, 12 (72 per cent of cases) could have had a different outcome if good care had been given, of which nine should reasonably have been expected to have had a different outcome.
In nearly half of all cases examined by the panel, good care could have led to a different outcome for the families.
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