Metro
An NHS worker who says she faces being fired for whistleblowing is going on hunger strike outside the Department of Health.
Jade Taylor, 46, has set up camp in Whitehall with placards, bags, and bottles of water. She has vowed to stay as long as she could – until she gets a meeting with Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt.
Taylor, who leads a community team in a mental health trust, started speaking up about her concerns over patient and staff safety after the mistreatment of her parents at Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust.
Their deaths prompted her to complain about a ‘plethora of concerns’ in her own trust, Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation, including allegations of bullying and the mistreatment of whistleblowers.
She started her hunger strike at 7pm on Monday before taking up her post in Whitehall yesterday.
‘The trust I work for are saying that I have lost trust and confidence in them,’ she said, speaking outside the DoH last night. ‘I am not accepting that.
‘I want them to properly investigate my concerns. I refuse to resign and I’m not going anywhere.’
Two years later her mother Maureen, who suffered from Alzheimer’s disease, was seen at Stafford Hospital’s A&E and was admitted to stay overnight.In 2006 Taylor’s 67-year-old stepfather Andrew Panayiotes received care at the now-defunct Mid Staffs trust. He died after contracting an infection following surgery to remove a tumour.
However, Taylor says her mother was discharged inappropriately on her own the next day, which caused considerable distress. She was 66 years old.
‘Because of these experiences – whistleblowing was a real issue in Stafford – because of that I’m not going to give up on raising my concerns.’
She says she raised issues with trust bosses and the Care Quality Commission over bullying, patient and staff safety, the ‘culture’ and the treatment of whistleblowers.
However she claims they weren’t dealt with properly, and she was ‘overloaded and bullied’ as a result.
Now Taylor claims trust bosses have called a meeting to consider her future this week. She isn’t attending the meeting, but will be represented by the Royal College of Nursing.She has been off work sick for about a year, due to stress and a mild heart condition.
Berkshire Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust said: ‘We are unable to comment directly about Jade’s case as it is ongoing and we respect her right to confidentiality.
‘However, we take concerns about patient safety and quality of care extremely seriously and have a strong culture of encouraging and supporting our staff to speak up.
‘To date, all whistleblowing cases raised with us have been thoroughly investigated to the full satisfaction of our regulators, and where necessary we have implemented improvements to address any lessons learned.’
SHARMILA CHOWDHURY 
‘To date, all whistleblowing cases raised with us have been thoroughly investigated to the full satisfaction of our regulators, and where necessary we have implemented improvements to address any lessons learned.’ …
This sort of statement can be easily fabricated by NHS Trust Executives and Senior Managers.
Investigation of concerns are left within the remit of the Trust. The Trust executives are given a freehand to network and choose the investigating teams or ‘so called’ experts. Because these investigators are paid by the Trust there is an inherent bias. If a report is unfavourable the Trust can repeat the process wasting public funds till eventually they have “enough paper” to trivialise the concerns. Even death can be justified as ‘inevitable’. Negligence and adverse outcome is “tolerated” and ‘normalised’ …
… The whistleblower can then be discredited and a process of ‘constructive dismissal begins by subjecting the whistleblower to an “internal process” of investigation and persecution. Thereon a summery dismissal is quite easy.
Healthcare Regulators the CQC and Professional Regulatory organisations (eg:- GMC) turns a blind eye to concerns alerted to them. GMC in particular is still more likely to investigate a whistleblower for “misconduct” rather than heed reports about harm wrought of patients. The GMC appears to disregard the Hooper Report.
Click to access Hooper_Review___Action_Plan.pdf_62048557.pdf
There should be punitive action by the GMC against Medical Managers who wrongly report whistleblowers to the GMC.
It is a paradox that to the GMC considers ‘raising concerns’ to be a ‘misconduct’
I was fired for raising concerns about extended blood-smeared locked seclusion room seclusions of small vulnerable females in 2010 at NHS Roseberry Park Hospital, Middlesbrough. The trust said I examined her file for ‘too long. They referred me to the NMC who changed the charge to “complained without the victims consent” and placed me on four years of career crushing “practice conditions” requiring fortnightly interviews with the manager to examine my “insight into confidentiality”. My sporadic work resulted in all twenty interviews all recorded as “satisfactory” with positive accounts of my practice. The CQC finally phoned me in May 2015 and acknowledged that my continued complaints throughout 2013 prompted their July 2014 raid and failing the hospital on safeguarding standards stating that seclusion was being used as a way of running the wards. Eventually I managed to find a nursing home with a poor reputation who would at least employ me in January 2015 despite the NMC scrutiny. I had to take short term charge due to managers sickness and unfortunately they were severely neglecting residents not properly feeding hydrating or applying basic hygiene standards with repeated historical complaints all previously denied. I had to try and change then complained. Unfortunately the manager was friends with current inspector and boasted about their coffees together. My complaints along with former cooks who walked on the day I started were also ignored. The manager created six crazy allegations smoothed out by the NMC “investigator” and charged me. For example one claimed that a middle aged MS sufferer who hadn’t been for out for a wheelchair walk since admission 4 years previously and who jumped at the opportunity when I suggested it was firstly sent out with “wet hair” then adjusted by the NMC investigator to “sent out without her consent”. I was found guilty on all counts so published a photo I taken from the back of a resident being assisted in the toilet as usual without gloves or apron and with the door left wide open despite written denials of this to the CQC since 2010. 5 residents had died in the previous six months during sickness and diarrhea infections. I was struck off last month. Throughout I have self represented and an independent lawyer reckons an appeal will cost 20K and unlikely to succeed because the courts are reluctant to change panel decisions. I was innocent from the beginning and acknowledged by the CQC for stopping generations of abuse so shouldn’t have been subject to the conditions which set the scene for me to be struck off. I accept that the photo was an error but at least I hope it stopped that example of malpractice that may well have been responsible for the infections that cause sickness and diarrhea and can kill elderly people. My view of the NMC fitness to practice is that they are a playground for lawyers, paralegals and associated structures who all live a very comfortable London lifestyle whilst often knowingly prosecuting lies and trivia without a second thought. I can give examples where it has tampered and invented prosecution evidence. It hides behind its legal status and urgently requires reform.
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