Rose Gibb

Bloodied gowns left on trolleys, clinical waste bags dumped in corridors and blood stains are not what you want in a hospital. (Undercover reporter working as cleaner)

The official Healthcare Commission on Maidstone and Kent NHS Hospital trust does not not provide happier reading.

Shambolic mis-management or, to be more precise, lack of management of infection in a Kent NHS Trust. A depressing catalogue of incompetence. Lack of leadership from the top - and by that I mean from Consultant Microbiologists, doctors with specialist training in infection and bacteriology - was the main problem. Add to that government pressure on non-medically qualified managers to increase hospital turnover with inadequate nursing resources and you have a receipe for disaster.

A few words on Clostridium Difficile.

It has been around for years. It is rare. Contrary to what the media would have you believe, it is not caused by poor hygiene. Just as MRSA lives happily up your nose without causing problems, so C.Difficle lives happily in your colon until the bacteriological environment of the colon is changed. And it is commonly changed by an inexperienced junior hospital doctor prescribing a long and inappropriate course of broad spectrum antibiotics. Elderly women frequently get urinary tract infections. Mostly, they can be cured by six tablets of trimethoprim, one twice a day for three days. Cheap, cheerful, narrow spectrum and harmless. But give an inappropriate dose of what inexperienced doctors and nurses tend to view as a "stronger" antibiotic and the balance of the gut flora is disturbed and C.Difficle takes over. (A simple guide to C. Difficile here)

Once a patient becomes symptomatically infected with C.Difficile scrupulous barrier nursing is required. They had neither the facilities nor the skills to provide such nursing in Kent.
Patients and their families who contacted us were unhappy about much of the care received. They told us that when patients rang the call bell because they were in pain or needed to go to the toilet, their call often wasn't answered, or not in time. Especially distressing, nurses had told patients to "go in the bed", presumably because this was less time consuming than helping a patient to the bathroom. Some patients were left, sometimes for hours, in wet or soiled sheets, putting them at increased risk of pressure sores. (Healthcare Commission)
The chief executive of the Trust, Rose Gibb, has been instructed to fall on her sword and to do so without pay if the Secretary of State has his way. She, and a number of of her staff, may yet face criminal prosecution for manslaughter. I feel sorry for her. Far too reminiscent of John Byng. I feel sorry for them all. They were cutting corners to meet government targets.

As they are in a hospital near you. Posted by: Dr John Crippen    Source

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