In my dream, I saw a beautiful dog distressed and biting itself/yelping with pain. On closer inspection, the dog had placed on its front leg a sock puppet made to look like another dog. Unable to remove the sock puppet, the dog was reduced to attacking itself causing both physical and psychological pain.
Like Androclus and the lion's paw, I befriend the dog and am able to remove the offending sock puppet. No longer distressed, the dog and I bond as healing takes place.
This feels a remarkable metaphor given what happened to Sara Ryan yesterday. The leaking of an August 2012 document as part of Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust's due diligence on their takeover of Ridgeway in Oxfordshire. To quote Sara:
A Quality and Safety Review, conducted as part of the Governance Work Stream. That details lack of clarity in care plans, risk assessments not updated or appropriate, issues with RiO, lack of assessment from the wider team, dirt, lack of maintenance, crap about Mental Capacity stuff, and so on. And so on.
Everything that contributed to the death of Connor Sparrowhawk was known before Southern Health took over the site and its services. And this document, circulated at executive level, was kept from the police, the coroner, the Inquest, the auditors, the Care Quality Commission, NHS Improvement, NHS England and the Department of Health it appears. Certainly none of these NHS bodies would want to admit they knew this document existed.
We also have the testimony of Lesley Stevens for the corporate body of Southern Health at last year's Inquest.
In that testimony, in response to a question from Adam Samuel re the staffing levels at STATT where Connor was detained, Stevens replied "well we make savings where we have to make them".
The jury then asked two significant questions that directly relate to this latest leaked document. The first asked what work had been undertaken in the 18 months leading up to Southern Health's takeover of Ridgeway. Stevens responded that there was a great deal of due diligence done by Southern Health ahead of takeover and that the Quality Director spent a lot of time in STATT. The follow-up question asked whether any of that work raised alarm bells. Stevens replied "not at STATT".
Despite knowing that the staffing and governance at Ridgeway was poor, the corporate executive at Southern Health not only pushed on with their takeover, they reduced staffing without resolving any of the issues raised by their own due diligence. This isn't just neglect, it is wilful disinterest in the safety of patients. This is corporate manslaughter territory and the police need to not only reopen the investigation but aggressively interrogate Southern Health's IT systems for further evidence. The non-disclosure of this document demonstrates that they cannot trust the word of this NHS Trust.
The other issue here is the potential of perjury by Lesley Stevens at the Inquest. No alarm bells raised as a result of their 18 months of due diligence? It is an incredulous claim.
And this is the sock puppet of corporate Southern Health: their incompetence.
No more will I collude with this. Instead lets call Southern Health what they are: Corporate Gaslighters.
Their actions are intentional and deliberate. Designed to confuse and create mitigation in the eyes of others through sowing doubt. By colluding with their sock puppet, we harm ourselves by not acknowledging the truth.
Sara and her partner Richard Huggins have written to Jim Mackie, David Behan, Jeremy Hunt and Simon Stevens to bring attention to this document and raise several questions/points. I would add these questions to Mackie, Behan, Hunt and Stevens - how long are you willing to tolerate an NHS Mental Health Trust abusing patients, families and staff through their gaslighting? How long are you willing to be gaslighted?
The dreadfulness of what has occurred is deeper and nastier than I thought possible. Resignations are inadequate. The corporate board at Southern Health need to be removed, prosecutions pursued and sine die written in regards to any further involvement with the NHS. Nothing less will do.
