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21st June 2013 

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News and Comment from Roy Lilley

It's been a bad week for the CQC.  With one desperately, catastrophically stupid decision they tried to hide the names of people implicated in a cover-up concerning the deaths of 16 babies at the Morecambe Bay Hospital.

 

Not content with that, they prayed-in-aid the Data Protection Act and made themselves look like complete numpties.  Within seconds of their decision to hide behind the DPA Twitter erupted with commentators and lawyers saying they were wrong, wrong, wrong.  How could they be so daft?  So gullible?  Or, were they crafty?  Did they think they could get away with it?  Do they have no common-sense?  No nouse?

 

We have to decide; are they stupid, dishonest, ill-advised, deceitful, senseless or untrustworthy.  Perhaps they are na�ve, inexperienced, untested or really, really dim.  Did they really think that publishing the names of people implicated in this awful affair was anything other than in the public interest?  One thing is for sure, they have appalling judgement.

 

Why do good people go bad?  I have met the Teflon-man, David Behan, boss of the CQC.  He is earnest, works indecently long hours and I thought, wanted to do the right thing.  What a disappointment he has turned out to be. 

 

How much courage would it have taken to say; "We have a report, it's horrible.  It names names and despite being told we risk being sued, I will put these names into the public domain by 2pm today.  If the people involved want to sue us; they know what to do.  My job is to put the public first."  However much guts it might have taken, he didn't have 'em.  Instead he settled for a bureaucrat's statement and made himself look a fool on Newsnight.

 

It seems to me his judgement is flaky.  He threatened to sue the Daily Telegraph.  How easily he forgets his role is to protect the reputation of the NHS  by making it safer for patients.   It is not to protect the reputation of ex-colleagues and members of staff who, it seems, did not.

  

The new Tory Chairman of the CQC, Thingumabob, fresh in post and untainted by the past, could have been brave.  Alas his policy of 'avoiding waves' has ensured his organisation has been engulfed in a storm.

 

Why have this pair failed to recognise the public mood, respond to the frame-of-mind of the moment?  Transparency the word is easy to say.  Transparency the deed takes bravery to do.  Have any leaders, since Lord Reglan gave the order to the Light Brigade to charge, led their organisations into a more catastrophic cul-de-sac than this duo?

 

As well as shredding their own careers they have torn-up any belief that the CQC is independent of government.  Foggy announced to the House of Lords that the CQC would be naming names long before Teflon and Thingamabob announce they would do it.

 

How do these two recover public trust?  How can Teflon man stand at a conference and lecture the hard working front-line of care on transparency and whistle-blowing?  I suspect he will speak to empty auditoriums.  How can the CQC look the NHS in the eye and say we are worth two and a half thousand nurses; for that is what their budget would buy.  How can their crumpled Thingamabob convince us he is holding the executive to account?

 

They can't.  They are finished.  They won't have the decency to quit, but they should.  They have no credibility and they must go.  We know they won't.  They will hang on.  'Till their knuckles go white, they will hang on.

 

They are just like so many failed NHS leaders before them.  When it calls for courage there isn't any.  When it calls for making trouble they avoid the tough issues.  They become opaque when crystal clear is needed.  When truth needs to be spoken to power, they are silent.

 

The CQC has tried umpteen ways of regulating and inspecting health care.  They have a new wheeze - It'll fail.  They have all failed.  Is this organisation cursed?  The truth is; central, bureaucratic inspection doesn't work.  A Trust chief executive told me, this week, he is busy assembling a 'hospital inspection unit' to 'facilitate visits' from Inspector Mike Richard's inspection teams.  He's earmarked �250k.  You can define 'facilitate' for yourself.  He boasted they are always tipped off when the CQC are on the way. 

 

Truth to power?  Waits are on the up, the front-line is being stripped of staff and quality is going down the toilet.  Social services are on their knees.  A 0.1% annual uplift against growth in demand of +4% means the NHS is in a bad place and it is getting worse.  All the inspection in the world ain't gonna fix it.

 

Teflon and Thingamabob should do the right thing, the honest thing.  The brave thing; tell ministers they can't inspect their way out of a mess and this won't work, then pack their bags and on the way out, turn off the lights.

 

Have a good weekend.
  

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