Maidstone & Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust Board must go NOW

Health Secretary Alan Johnson has failed to act decisively. Or act, other than to seek to shift the blame over the impact of targets that the government has pursued so relentlessly despite a plethora of argument about their destructive nature.

Hoops ‘a’ jumping, hoops hoops hoops.

Ok. Johnson has acted to try to stop Gibb’s pay off (pending legal advice, possibly £400,000) but what practical real action has he taken. Well none! The Board are still in place, at least as this post is published.

Some Quotes from the Healthcare Commissions report

"Until recently, the board considered the annual report on control of infection solely as a retrospective document rather than a prospective plan for the coming year where the board could influence and agree priorities.

Additionally, the impact of financial pressures was to reduce further already low numbers of nurses and to put a cap on the use of nurses from agencies and nursing banks. There was unrelenting pressure to reduce the number of beds. Thus, both trusts had very high occupancy levels, could not manage with fewer beds, and so had to open ‘escalation’ beds, often at short notice and in unsuitable environments, without proper support services and equipment in place and, by definition, without permanent staff. The effect of all this was to compromise seriously the control of infection and the quality of clinical care.

We are concerned that where trusts are struggling with a number of problems that consume senior managers’ time, and are under severe pressure to meet targets relating to finance and access, concern for infection control may be undermined.

C. difficile figures were reported to infection control committee meetings, held every three months, but were generally three or four months out of date. The information was part of the pack that subsequently went to the clinical governance and risk committee, the trust management board and the trust board. There was no evidence of action in response to the figures. The data also formed part of the annual infection control report.

Between April 2004 and September 2006 the trust reported to the Healthcare Commission that it had 1,176 patients with
C. difficile infection

At least 345 people died in hospital between April 2004 and September 2006 following an admission to the trust in which they developed C. difficile infection."

The MTW Trust BOARD must go.

There will be much more to publish soon!