At the opening session of AfPP’s annual Congress, TV personality, comedian and qualified doctor, Phil Hammond, provided a thought-provoking presentation on the subject of 'difficult discussions', and gave an insight into his own whistleblowing role in breaking the story of the Bristol heart scandal in Private Eye.
“A brave individual at the hospital collected comparative data from different units and clearly knew that Bristol was a significant outlier. He tried to go through the correct channels and was beaten back, so he handed the information to me on Private Eye,” explained Phil Hammond.
“I published it in a fairly angry and aggressive way and, with hindsight, I am not surprised that the Trust responded by ignoring the article – someone had leaked confidential audit data and it had been portrayed in a confrontational way. I now appreciate that this aggressive stance makes people raise their drawbridges.”
It took seven years for a public inquiry to take place, but system failures were identified all the way up to the Department of Health. Most parents had been unaware that were any issues, however.
“The parents of the children felt extremely guilty that surgery continued three or four years after I had published my initial article. The fact that the information had been in the public domain, and they had not been able to protect their children, destroyed marriages and lives,” he continued, adding: “What kept me going was the expectation that everything would change – there would be no need for whilstleblowers as clinical governance would be improved and problems would be picked up early, in a culture of openness.
“Above all, paediatric surgery would be improved by moving from small units with one or two surgeons to fewer but larger paediatric centres – where the right specialist expertise, staff and equipment would be concentrated.
“Despite the inquiry, which cost millions of pounds (along with a review of paediatric cardiac services), the Labour Government decided that it was not convinced by the arguments and did nothing. It is no surprise, therefore, that this was followed by the Oxford heart inquiry. Some 18 years after I broke the story in Private Eye and 10 years after the Bristol inquiry, we still have poorly organised paediatric surgery in the UK, which makes me extremely angry.”
Although the pace of change has been slow, Phil Hammond advised that he had learned from his experience that campaign messages, such as “Speaking Up and Speaking Out”, need to be repeated over and over again until people are “bored of hearing it”.
In conclusion, Phil Hammond left the audience with a poignant message on learning from past mistakes: “At a recent conference on ‘how to prevent another Mid Staffs’, I raised the question: ‘Who can be sure, with a reasonable degree of confidence, that another disaster like Mid Staffs is not happening right now, elsewhere in the NHS?’
“Not a single person raised their hand – including Andrew Lansley. Despite all the scrutiny taking place nationally, we cannot have this confidence without dealing with the issues locally.”
