Action to Save St. John's Hospital Party

05/10/2018

Investigations into Police Scotland continue.

It would appear the NHS isn’t the only public body in Scotland to face tough questions.

04/10/2018

NHS Lothian's 10 year plan.

4th. October, 2018.

So, it's official. NHS Lothian admits it has no chance of re-opening the children's ward to 24/7 admissions for another 3 years. This should not be a surprise. We warned of it immediately after the Royal College of Paediatrics reported on the options. Within weeks, NHS Lothian was backsliding from its commitment to the recommended 24/7 model.

But then backsliding and lying is what NHS Lothian does best. It's pointless repeating our warnings of the past. It's equally pointless calling on our politicians to intervene, because, in the main, they are spineless incompetents who refuse to take the blatantly incompetent people running our public services to task. People like Jim Crombie and Brian Houston have presided over this shambles for too many years.

These were the numpties brought in to change NHS Lothian for the better. They were going to sort the waiting list figures and bullying. Have they? No, they've failed to address it, and it has been allowed to continue. In fact, they continued the trend of figure-fiddling and lying to the public. Worse still, in addition to truth and effective management, they've now added our children's ward to their casualty list.

If these people were medics, they'd have been jailed for their incompetence and willful disregard for patient safety. Bad enough these scoundrels pick on us, but our children now as well?

We say enough is enough. The axe needs to start falling on the deadwood, and the scalpel taken to malignant tumours of incompetence and wilfull mismanagement on the corporate body of NHS Lothian, and more widely in the NHS in Scotland. And all without the anaesthetic of golden parachutes and enhanced payoffs. Give them what they're worth: a foot in the rear.

As for the Scottish Government, they've lost the plot. It simply isn't good enough that their skewed sense of priorities puts their political ideology above our childrens' lives. They too need to be taken to task.

West Lothian's children are being put at absurdly unacceptable levels of risk. It's time we stopped accepting the sickening diet of excuses for a situation of their making, and got to grips with it.

We know the effects, now let's deal with the causes.

For the umpteenth time: SACK THE BOARD!!!

27/08/2018

27th. August, 2018.

SPA Whitewash.
A complaint made in February 2018 against Police Scotland’s newest Chief Constable will eventually be considered tomorrow (28th. August, 2018) by the Scottish Police Authority’s Complaints and Conduct..........................

27/08/2018

Whether or not this is of interest to the readership, we feel it is right to highlight the ongoing struggles in a case that only began because of the formation of this party, and the commitment of those who put their heads above the parapet in 2007.

28/06/2018

Bullying and figure-fiddling? Just more of the same...

28th. June, 2018.

The news last year that NHS Lothian's staff had been fiddling A&E figures came as no surprise. Nor has the news that a culture of bullying lay behind the figure fiddling. It is business as usual in Scotland's most incompetent and corrupt health board.

According to those in power, you shouldn't worry. Here's what they had to say, and why you SHOULD WORRY about it.
NHS Lothian’s interim chief executive, Jim Crombie, said “However, we also share the Scottish Academy’s concern about bullying behaviour as reported by staff at many levels during the review, while recognising that there was no evidence of bullying and harassment at Board Level.”

This is code for “blame the staff, but this Board is blameless”. Except it isn’t. It has presided, yet again, over another scandal. It has failed to protect its staff. It has failed to steer the ship. It has failed miserably on all levels of governance. And just because there was no evidence of bullying and harassment at Board level doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.

On a personal level, Jim Crombie is the man brought in to sort out the waiting times debacle after we uncovered the biggest scandal in NHS Scotland’s history. He failed miserably, and on his watch there were two further episodes of fiddling those same figures. He’s presided over the downgrade of the children’s ward at St. John’s. And now, as interim chief executive, he’s presided over this mess.

We see a pattern: incompetence and ineffectual leadership rewarded by promotion. Brilliant. Just brilliant.

As for chairman Brian Houston, he is equally dismissive of critics.

He said: “The review is not about assigning blame and true change is more than just re-writing protocols and procedures. We have to re-focus our own mindsets. If something has gone wrong in the way in which staff are working with each other or in the pressures they feel from day to day, then it is up to us in the board of NHS Lothian to fix it.”

So let’s get this right. It happened because of the way staff interact or react to pressure. [sic read “bullying”] It is up to the Board to fix it, but the Board’s not to blame. But isn’t that blaming the staff Mr. Houston? It sure as heck reads that way to us!!

The very unsubtle message from these two key players is simple: the Board is not to blame because this isn’t about blame. Unless you’re the staff. And we’re the men at the top so we’ve said so. But we’re not bullies.

Right. Just like the chief executive during the waiting times scandal wasn’t a bully. Except he was, and he got canned.

Well, we say it is about blame, and Brian Houston and Jim Crombie among many other NHS Lothian Board members, are very much to blame. Even if we’re wrong, what happened to the principles of corporate governance, responsibility and accountability? Like so many other inconvenient management principles, they’ve been jettisoned in favour of blaming everyone else, while protecting the well-padded backsides of the Board members: professionally, figuratively and, most importantly, financially.

The whistle-blower deserves our thanks and respect for highlighting yet another NHS Lothian scandal. But be in no doubt: if that person ever puts their head above the parapet, you will witness NHS Lothian Board’s “no-blame, no-bully” culture in action.

And it won’t be pleasant for the whistleblower.

20/06/2018

A decade of corruption............

20th. June, 2018.

Ten years after this party came under attack at the behest of the Labour Party and a self-preserving SNP, corruption in our public services is alive and well.

Worse than the cover-up now being perpetrated by those at the top to protect their "Man in Havana", our attention is drawn to Scottish politics' own "Man of Cuba". The great socialist, Neil Findlay MSP was close to this case in 2008. In fact, he was one of the complainers who demanded the police should be brought in to West Lothian Council to investigate spurious corruption allegations. Former Chief Executive Alex Linkston was forced to step down after admitting that the allegations contained "nothing illegal", but only after he accommodatingly forwarded the unsubstantiated and unfounded Labour Party allegations.

Step forward Iain Livingstone, and a 4 year campaign of lies, abuse, harassment and police malfeasance followed-with no cases ever being brought.

Without any hint of irony, Findlay continues to make a name for himself, roundly criticising the Thatcher Government's use of the police in an industrial and political dispute. He appears to see no similarity in the two stories.

Likewise, his criticism of the Scottish Government's alleged interference in FOI procedures doesn't sit well with how he and others abused the system in West Lothian. Despite an embargo under police instructions, Findlay and others in the Labour Party obtained copies of the files. They published them through a Glasgow newspaper whose reporter cut and pasted unrelated emails to sensationalise the stories.

Not satisfied with that, they had officers send confidential emails from the political leadership direct to them. To show just how well-connected they were, they were able to make the request for emails giving the dates, times and recipients-depsite the fact the emails should never have gone beyond sender and recipient.

We live in a society dogged with revisionism and fake news. Thankfully there are still a few of us who know the meaning of the truth-and have the records to back it up!

01/06/2018

Apathy won't help if your children need health services.

1st. June, 2018.

The first anniversary of NHS Lothian's "temporary" closure of St. John's Hospital's children's ward to 24/7 patients is fast approaching. The public seem to have lost interest-unless you've been one of those hundreds of children, parents and relatives directly affected.

During that time, the incompetents and thoughtless among NHS Lothian's hierarchy have continued to climb the greasy pole. Nothing succeeds like failure these days, which probably explains why so many senior figures in NHS Lothian do so well from the public estate.

The sooner the Scottish Government grows a backbone the better. We need a cull of these time-wasting public servants, better known for their self-serving agendas.

It's now over 6 months since we made an FOI request to NHS Lothian to tell us exactly what they had been doing with paediatric staff over the past few years. The Scottish Information Commissioner is investigating.

We are sure of one thing: when we do get the information, it will blow holes in the public excuses given by those such as that walking epitaph to failure, NHS Lothian's acting chief executive Jim Crombie. Acting chief executive? Really? This is the man brought in to sort out the waiting times debacle after we exposed their figure-fiddling. Not only did he fail, they fiddled the figures twice more, and lied about doing it. Nothing succeeds like failure indeed.

People might be jaded by the never-ending cycle of political and public sector failures. Perfectly understandable that they have other priorities in life.

But if you won't fight for your children, can you really expect the politicians that so many are quick to condemn for being hopeless, to do it for you?

31/05/2018

We are sharing this link because our party was embroiled in this scandalous and unfounded investigation. SNP councillors and MSPs were too, but they moved on unscathed. Amazing what being in Government can do for you.

12/04/2018

Nothing new, sadly.

12th. April, 2018.

It has been some time since our last post. We've previously highlighted our very stretched resources, and that hasn't changed. But our silence doesn't mean we've been entirely inactive.

Behind the scenes, we continue to closely follow what’s going on in the health service generally, and specifically at St. John's. We don't get the credit, but then we seldom ever did. Not that we were in it for the glory, but it's nice to see hard work and effort recognised.

The health service in Scotland trundles on. Each good-news story is outweighed by two or three bad-news stories. Staff continue to hold things together with sticking plasters of goodwill and hard work, while those at the top get away with murder-literally.

As we continue to see, incompetence and misfeasance at the highest levels is ignored by those in power. Sure, a few heads may roll, such as in the recent debacle at Tayside, but does that address the issue? We don’t think so. After all, the bulk of the tediously incompetent, impotent and ineffectual NHS Tayside Board responsible for thieving from the endowment fund are still in situ. With the herd mentality of water buffalo, they throw a couple of their number to the lions, and all is well. The mentality of a not particularly agile or articulate, but eminently bone-headed species of mammal!

All of this happened in Shona Robison’s back yard, and the best she can do is lamely witter on about lessons being learned, and how she won’t tolerate this kind of conduct. It really is shameless and inexcusable that more than ten years after taking office, the SNP still don’t want to shoulder any of the responsibility for what’s happened to the NHS on their watch.

Those who continue to populate our health boards are no more “learning lessons” from past mis-deeds than ever they did. Our own NHS Lothian is still hell-bent on doing its own thing, and to hell with the public they are supposed to serve. Incompetent corporate flotsam continues to slither up the greasy pole of promotion and fat cat salaries, while our local services-in particular, those fundamental to the wellbeing of our children such as the children’s ward-are wrecked.

We put in an FOI request for paediatric staff rotas across NHS Lothian on 16th. December, 2017. After almost 5 months, they’ve failed to provide a single piece of information. So while they increase consultant numbers, a key point in their argument that the ward couldn’t be sustained in the past, they can loan consultants to the Borders on secondment. It’s not that long ago NHS Lothian claimed that safe rotas couldn’t be provided, while the consultant body called them liars to their faces. We were then told they needed to recruit more consultants. They have, but now they claim they can’t tell them where to work.

There are two words for this: “madness” and “garbage”. It is madness, because if we have allowed the system to degenerate to this level of farce, we all deserve what they mete out to us. But it is garbage, because a former chair of NHS Lothian Board stood on the steps of St. John’s and stated that if a shortage of medics, including consultants, at St. John’s threatened services, he would “personally kick their ars*s out of Edinburgh to West Lothian”.

We’re expected to believe the Board is being bullied by staff? Really? We doubt that very much, but if it is true, it reinforces everything we have ever said about the stupidity of NHS Lothian Board.

The culture that NHS Boards have created in Scotland’s NHS is a shameful legacy. Bullying, abusing and threatening staff; unlawfully silencing whistleblowers; mismanaging public finances; de facto privatisation of our NHS to fix their cock-ups; this is merely a snapshot-the list is endless.

It’s not only that Boards do what they do: they’re getting away with doing it in plain sight. Good manners prevent us from expressing our fullest opinions about these people, but arrogant, incompetent, thoughtless, uncaring and misfeasant go some way to making a start.

And lest we ever forget, they are exceptionally good at what they are, if not what they are supposed to do!

30/06/2017

Please Share Our Posts.

It would help publicise the threats to the children's ward at St. John's, and other serious issues in the health service in our locla area, if our friends and supporters could share our posts.

Please help us get the message out to as many people as possible!

Thanks for your help.

30/06/2017

The disaster that masquerades as a Health Board in Lothian.

30th. June, 2017.

As we forecast, NHS Lothian's excuse for the third temporary closure of St. John's children's ward, is the potential fragility of the rotas, rather than any identifiable risk or actual staff shortages.

This is same waffle they trotted out the first time around in 2012.

So, do we have the right to condemn them outright for their mismanagement? Yes, we do, because their conduct is inexcusable and palpable deceit.

Our politicians also seem puzzled by the lack of consultation with local staff in advance of the closure. But why should they be? This too happened in 2012. The consultants were ignored.

How do we know? Because the consultants gave us a copy of their letter to NHS Lothian's incompetent bureaucrats. So here's what they said in 2012.

“Dear Mr.Farquarson, [the then medical director]

We very much appreciate the time and investment the board has put into addressing the problems at St. John's as well as in Lothian to maintain adequate staffing levels to provide a safe service. We particularly appreciate the input and hard­work of Fiona Mitchell and Dr. Edward Doyle in highlighting these issues to yourselves and working with us in order to recruit additional staff at considerable financial cost to the Board to ensure the safety and sustainability of the service.

However, as a paediatric consultant body we are writing to you to highlight our concerns about plans to close inpatient paediatric services at St John's Hospital overnight and on weekends for the three weeks beginning 9th. July 2012.

This decision which we understand has been reached at board level has left us in a difficult position. The timing of this decision, however well meant, may be precipitant and may in fact impact adversely on patient care as well as other services such as primary care. The practicalities of a service change like this need to be thought through and full pathways of care discussed and rehearsed. This cannot happen in 1 week.

We have had no face to face discussion with the out of hours service, and the only discussion with SAS, RHSC doctors and A/E service in St Johns was to explore the possibilities of service redesign not to plan pathways of care to deal with this situation.

We are also particularly concerned that the decision was made without any up to date contact with the consultant body in St Johns. It was appreciated that the months of July and early August due to annual leave and paternity leave could potentially leave gaps. Dr Karen Barclay who is responsible for the rota has worked tirelessly to fill these.

We are now fully staffed, most specifically at registrar level and this information, if sought, would have been available for the last 6 weeks.

We were aware that t longer term issues about the model of paediatric and maternity services at St John's have to be discussed. The model of changing from a paediatric inpatient unit to a short stay paediatric assessment unit has been proposed by the Royal College of Paediatricians in London. We were always under the impression that this discussion would take place in a controlled and planned manner involving all stake-holders.

We acknowledge that the Board must have not come up with decision lightly. However, we as the paediatric consultant body at St. John's Hospital feel that decision is wrong as we have in place a sufficiently robust middle grade and consultant rota to cover the period in question. We look forward to your thoughts and reply.”

Indeed.

Everything that is a serious concern now, was then too. In this day and age of excuses for mismanagement, misfeasance and just plain incompetence, we hear all too often that “lessons will be learned” and that we should all move along.

In NHS Lothian land, they never learn lessons. The evidence is there to see, and those are not our words. These are the words of not one, but five consultants writing to their bosses 5 long years ago. Except for the dates, and a few other changes, the stories the same one. It might have been a song in a less serious setting……………………….

Patients, in the meantime, are left with what has been euphemistically described as an “omnishambles”.

Shona Robison should take heed: this is not a new situation in any respect, so past excuses just aren’t acceptable.

29/06/2017

Good God, he's further up the greasy pole...........

29th. June, 2017.

Nothing should terrify observers of this situation more than learning Jim Crombie appears to have managed to get further up the promotion ladder on the back of the woeful performance we have witnessed since he arrived at NHS Lothian. Of course, it is not the best way to advance a campaign by focussing on individuals for personal criticism, but as with other deserving cases, we are prepared to make an exception.

So let's take a chance and forecast what the excuses, sorry, "reasons for temporary sic closure" might include.

For a start, Mr. Crombie will undoubtedly tell us there were no other "elegant solutions", his sloppy language for "we haven't a bloody clue!"

He will tell us that the rotas might be robust, but in the event of illness or absence, they will quickly become unsafe. That old chestnut has been used before.

So too has the inevitable excuse that the Royal and Sick Kids form the tertiary hub for Lothian, Fife and the Borders. All very reasonable, except Mr. Crombie, we in West Lothian have had to listen to this pap from you and your equally uninspiring colleagues for years.

The bottom line is you have NO commitment to West Lothian. We come a very bad second to everyone else. The evidence is there for all to see, and you really don't care, whatever you may tell us.

You've hired the bulk of the additional consultants, doctors and specialist nurses you said you would. The fact there are still gaps should not result in the default position being the children's ward at St. John's gets downgraded. But that is exactly what happens: time and time and time again, until..............

Well, that's anyone's guess-or it would be if we didn't already know what you intend.

It would fit NHS Lothian and its incompetents better if they would grow a backbone and tell us exactly what they intend to do. If the children's ward was a patient, they would already be up on criminal charges for assault and criminal negligence. Closing it, well that would just be corporate manslaughter.

Never mind, with their haphazard mismanagement of our health services, there's still time for them to add killing children to their CVs.

Before an equally spineless Scottish Government promotes them again for their achievements!

HEALTH bosses are facing new questions over the temporary closure of the children’s ward at St John’s Hospital in Livingston after both West Lothian’s MPs were sent a rota showing there were enough doctors to keep it open round the clock.