Armstrongs’ Ian Carruthers says an NHS ‘culture of secrecy’ needs to stop

THERE has been much comment recently, following claims that more than a quarter of the £25m paid out after hospital blunders in Merseyside and Cheshire went straight to solicitors.

But this masks the reality of a very serious problem within the NHS: the issue of openness in hospitals when things go wrong.

New laws came into force on April 1 requiring hospitals to send anonymous reports of mistakes to a central database.

Failure to comply will lead to prosecution.

But the new reporting system by the Care Quality Commission, the health watchdog, has angered patients’ groups because it does not require doctors to share the information with victims or bereaved relatives.

Why should victims or their families be left in the dark when something goes wrong?

This culture of secrecy has lead to a groundswell of opinion that some hospitals are covering up for fatal blunders and issuing misinformation following errors.

Armstrongs Solicitors is currently acting on behalf of a family who claim a GP lied at their son’s inquest and falsified medical records in order to cover his own back.

It is this culture of cover-up that is the real issue we should all be discussing when we talk about NHS blunders, and not stories about lawyer’s fees.

IAN CARRUTHERS is a professional negligence specialist.