Matt Hancock reviewed plans to ban the hiring of fired managers at other NHS agencies. Credit: Steve Parsons/PA Wire
The Telegraph's plans may reveal bar managers guilty of serious NHS violations have been terminated after Matt Hancock failed to back them up.
Government instructed anchor lawyer to improve the accountability of senior executives amid fears that those who have been shamed by scandals could move to other positions.
Tom Kark KC called for the creation of a regulator to maintain a register of NHS leaders in the same way as the General the medical council controls who can practice medicine.
A lawyer who advised on the Mid Staffs investigation said in 2019 that there should be a Health Standards Board with «the power to remove managers for serious misconduct.»
In 2019, Mr. Hancock said he «sees the appeal» of such a system. However, he did not accept this recommendation, nor did any of his successors. As a result, the new system due to be introduced to the NHS next month does not include such sanctions.
The former health secretary said he was still considering the idea of the power to fire managers when the pandemic hits. and his attention has shifted to that.
The Fitness and Good Conduct Test, which will be introduced next month, will require managers to certify «established standards of competence» with mandatory references, including details of complaints of misconduct.
But this is far from a recommendation meant to bring an end to the carousel that allows disgraced NHS leaders to move from job to job.
On Sunday, senior doctors demanded crackdown on «unaccountable» NHS managers after hospital chiefs were accused of «dodging life-threatening mistakes» in the case of child serial killer Lucy Letby.
Lucy Letby's timeline
Tony Chambers, chief executive of the Countess of Chester Hospital during the period when Letby killed seven babies and tried to kill six more, continued to hold a number of other lucrative positions in the NHS.
Then the director of the trust. caregiver, Alison Kelly, who was accused by the court of inaction when doctors raised «serious concerns» about Letby during Ms. Kelly's tenure as Director of Nursing and Quality at the Countess of Chester Hospital.
Mr. Ms Kelly is currently removed from her role as Director of Nursing at the Northern Care Alliance NHS Trust. Both Mr Chambers and Ms Kelly have said they will cooperate fully with the investigation.
The British Medical Association, which represents physicians, said senior management should be treated in the same way as physicians and banned from work if serious violations are found.
Professor Philip Banfield, chairman of the board of the BMA, said: “The BMA has already has long called for non-clinical managers to be regulated in the same way as physicians, a move that has since been echoed by Sir Robert Francis, who led the investigation into the Mid Staffs scandal.
“For any regulator to be effective, it must be supportive and have a range of powers and sanctions available. If there is no way to remove someone from office or disbar someone after persistent or serious failures, then this makes the regulator toothless and regulation useless.”
Digital check
Dr. Kevin O'Kane, a consultant in emergency internal medicine, added that «there is no excuse that there was no professional regulation for NHS managers,» while Mark Aitken, a consultant rheumatologist, said that «a lesson from Lucy Letby's case» was that «NHS leaders should be subject to the same rigorous scrutiny of their practice as clinicians.»
All physicians must register with the GMC in order to be licensed to practice in the UK and may have their license revoked if they are found to have committed serious offences.
Liam Fox, a former Conservative cabinet minister and former general practitioner, said: “There is no reason why physicians and nurses should be held accountable for behavior and performance to professional bodies rather than managers, especially when management can change clinical pathways or safety. patients, as they did in this case.
“Simply avoiding life-damaging mistakes should not be an option in an ethical NHS.”
Police interview with Lucy Letby
A spokesman for Matt Hancock said: “This recommendation was still under consideration when the pandemic hit and understandably it was being addressed. This recommendation would have been very difficult to implement and unfortunately would not have stopped these killings even if it were in place at the time.”
Police received calls on Saturday evening asking them to investigate against the managers of the Countess of Chester Hospital for alleged corporate manslaughter. On Monday, the trust confirmed that it had ordered an independent review of the management decisions made at the time of the Letby murders.
The review is expected to have been ordered in 2020 and will not be completed until after the independent review. The investigation has begun.
In a letter to hospitals on Friday, Amanda Pritchard, chief executive of the NHS, warned of the «importance of NHS leaders to listen to the concerns of patients, families and staff, and after the whistle-blowing procedures.»
She added that all directors of the trust must meet «requirements for fitness and proper personality», including that they have not been involved in «serious misconduct or mismanagement».
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