Did Trust twist the truth on Hospital plans?
October 19, 2007 12:00 AM
Inaccurate, incomplete and deliberately misrepresenting information. Does this describe the Trust's plans to move services away from Maidstone Hospital?
County Councillor Trudy Dean has called for a 'double treble check' on information supplied by Maidstone Hospital Trust to support their case for removing services from Maidstone , following the Healthcare Commission report damming 'inaccurate', ' incomplete', and 'deliberately misrepresenting' information given by the Trust about infection and death rates at the hospital.
Trudy said "The Healthcare Commission say the Trust lost sight of patient care because they were driven by Government targets and financial problems. Was that also true of their plans to move services away from Maidstone Hospital? If they were prepared to conceal and twist the truth about people who died in their care, how can we believe anything else they told us?"
Trudy has written to the Chairman of the Independent Reconfiguration Panel appointed by Government to review the plans following thousands of objections. She has pointed out that evidence given by hospital employees about treatment at Maidstone Hospital of women in childbirth, and recent reports about the damaging effects on patients of longer journey times to hospital, contradicted information given by the Trust. She says "I urge you to satisfy yourselves that the information supplied to the public and others to justify the Trust's plans was accurate, complete and reflects the best outcomes for patient care. If it was not then the plans and the consultation need to go back to square one. "
The Healthcare Commission's Investigation into outbreaks of Clostridium difficile at Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust Is riddled with criticisms of inaccurate, incomplete and deliberately misrepresented information supplied by the Hospital to the public and to the Commission itself. The report says "The Trust was unable to tell the Healthcare Commission with certainty the factual basis for the numbers in the press releases." It points to patient records being lost, records not completed, death certificates not copied, and incomplete reviews of infection rates. It criticises the attitude of Chief Executive Rose Gibb pointing out that in October 2005 she ignored Health Protection Unit advice to issue information to the public on rising infection and death rates in the Hospital saying that to do so would be to 'undermine public confidence'.