QUIZ

NHS operations, Patient Confidentiality, Workplace Culture

Firstly, which hospital which describes itself as “one of the world’s leading cardiothoracic hospitals” did not consultant a relevant specialist and mistakenly told a patient with a spinal injury that she would become “one of those people who you see walking around bent over”? This caused her untold distress.

Also, when asked by the patient to only discuss with her how she was feeling [while waiting for treatment], which hospital completely ignored this request and carried on speaking only to her son. Unfortunately [as she had suspected] he was wrongly describing her as feeling much better than she in fact was. This of course put her health and wellbeing at serious risk.

Although she had contacted the hospital previously to find out who her consultant was, this information was unfortunately unable to be found.

Secondly, which private healthcare company, after treating a patient as part of an NHS contract, now seems to be trying to avoid paying her the amount agreed with the NHS chief executive following publication on Facebook of her counselling notes? The notes had been passed to a third party by two staff of the private hospital in question.

. . . ANSWERS MAY WELL BE COMING SOON

FAMILY VALUES

Bullying by Social Media, Online Bullying, Uncategorized, Why Do People Bully

Family values are said to be those learned within a traditional family unit, examples include: honesty, caring, humour, learning, wisdom, leadership, and compassion. Maybe some of these values are not shared by certain of my family members!

Recently, my belief was confirmed that another family member has been involved with the abuse (some of it online) and attempts at serious harm I have experienced for over six years. This woman is married to a relative.

Although I have not seen her often, after my sister died and just before the real abuse started, this woman would deliberately try to get me talking about my relative. If I did not rise to the bait the first time, she would raise the subject again during a visit to try to get me to talk about her. Also at this time my relative briefly mentioned that this woman was useful as she could find out what was being said.

These factors made me suspect who could be behind all the abuse from my relative who I have always found to be very impressionable. I believed that someone had to be encouraging her obsessive behaviour.

The person who has been encouraging or, to use the legal term, inciting, this behaviour already has a previous criminal conviction for theft for which she received a suspended prison sentence. It therefore seems rather surprising to me that she has followed this latest course of action as she appears to believe that:

1) her involvement would never be discovered,

2) so there would be no danger of her having to appear in court,

3) if she was taken to court, the business she is involved in would not be affected in any way.

When the theft of several thousand pounds by this person was discovered, she found herself to be suffering from a psychiatric illness. This continued for a few months after the court case and then she made a very good recovery. There has been no mention of a recurrence of this illness since then. I hope she stays well over the next few weeks or months.

She has always given me the impression that she believes she is more intelligent than the family she married into, and she could be right. However, I cannot see the logic of a person spending years building up a transport business with her husband and then acting in a way which threatens its destruction for no good reason. At best, this appears to be shortsighted because she would know that my relative has tried to cause me very serious harm on several occasions, and to incite such behaviour is a criminal offence.

It also shows a surprising lack of care and consideration for her husband and the son involved in the transport business. What will they do if the enterprise fails now?

It also makes me wonder about her appearing to be friendly with my relative, and then encouraging her in a course of action which could lead to her committal to prison. Is this what you do to your friends? Also, my relative is now, like this woman, unemployable because of her actions. Might the woman not have been a better friend if she had tried to protect my relative from this type of behaviour?

I have always suspected that this woman likes to manipulate people if she can. I have tried to think about what the benefit could be to her in using my relative in this way. The woman has always seemed to like my relative and want to be her friend, so is the benefit the satisfaction of knowing she can influence the behaviour of someone she seems to admire? Or is it that she gets a thrill from manipulating the situation in secret?

I believe that my relative deleted all this woman’s social media messages as soon as she received them to avoid discovery, so it seems astonishing that she cannot see that she has been willing to take the blame for her own actions and has covered up for the person who encouraged her.

We have all on plenty of occasions said or done something and then thought afterwards that it would have been far better to have avoided that mistake. However, not many of us have spent a number of years continually behaving in such a damaging way with apparently little thought for the consequences.

Out of respect for other relatives and their spouses who live in the region I have had to relocate to, I have waited to see if any attempt is made to work towards resolving this situation. I am not aware that anything has been done, so feel court action is needed as if this woman is found to have a psychiatric condition then she would benefit from a treatment order.

COMMENT

Uncategorized

It seems to me that any organisation is only as good as its managers.  The organisation may have the best possible “front line” employees but will still be affected if it does not have efficient, effective and ethical local managers.

Firstly, one of the quickest ways to harm a business is for its owners or managers to involve themselves in any sort of nastiness towards others. Some clients and business partners tend not to like this type of behaviour and the damage caused to a commercial enterprise can be very difficult to overcome. I know of at least two small businesses which failed for this reason.

A person who has made several attempts at causing me very serious harm was driven past my house recently so now knows exactly where I live. I believe that prior to this she had been heard openly stating that she (still) wants to cause me very serious harm. I have seen the two people who were with her that day outside my house previously and believe they have so far received at least two visits from the authorities.

I moved over 160 miles to get away from a dangerous, very nasty set of circumstances, only for it to be brought to my door. It is likely that further attempts to cause me serious harm could be made by the person this couple were with. They have also repeated what she has been saying about me. Additionally, even though they know that she said she wanted to cause me very serious harm, they were still willing to show her where I live. I believe this means that they would have to bear part of the responsibility for any harm which may be caused to me.

There is also the risk of legal action for harassment and defamation which could of course lead to bad publicity.

Let’s hope that this couple’s wish to involve themselves in a situation relating to someone they do not know without first checking the facts does not put at risk the jobs of decent people who simply want to earn a living. 

Secondly, I have written on several occasions about some “anomalies” in public services in my former home town.

Recently, I was very disappointed to learn that one public service denies any involvement in my situation. I can think of instances where I know for sure that this organisation was involved.

The most likely reason I can think of for this denial is that one or more local managers were playing for time. If matters proceeded along the usual channels there would inevitably have been a time delay. This would give them the opportunity to find other jobs before any decision is made to rationalise services. (There were some “shortcuts” in the conduct of my situation.) 

If I am right, I do hope that the people concerned are taking as much care in protecting the positions of front line employees as their own.

Unfortunately, these are two sets of circumstances where the actions of just a few people could create the risk of long term consequences for a number of others.

SEARCHING . . .

Blog on Workplace Bullying, Bullying by Social Media, Online Bullying, Uncategorized

Firstly, I understand that I have been searched for again on social media. The post I am thinking of is worded in a way that shows the person still wants to think they can upset me. This person has had several attempts at causing me very serious harm.

Their hate campaign has lasted for some years now and I do not believe it is justified. I also suspect that it will not stop unless some action is taken. I feel that a major cause of this could be what happened to them as a child. I was in no way responsible for this: indeed, I put a stop to it. It could be that justice needs to be served on this matter as this may help this unfortunate person’s emotional state and enable them to move on with their life. I will give this serious consideration.

This is not the first time someone has searched for me since I relocated and this demonstrates to me that the courts need to deal with the situation without further delay.

It also suggests to me that the law on abuse via social media needs to be clarified and strengthened.

Secondly, I understand that some of the people who may be due to appear at the court case are planning to plead Not Guilty so that what they said about me on social media is repeated in court. They apparently want to do this to “have some fun” and presumably to cause me humiliation and embarrassment that day. As I have had several years of threats, abuse, harassment and attempts to cause me humiliation, both on social media and face-to-face, I am possibly more used to this than most. The main effect could therefore be to make the outcome more serious for those people, but I am sure they are aware of that.

It may be that the person presiding in court should be aware of this plan so I will take advice on this.

Lastly, for some time I have been aware of the help I receive from others behind the scenes. I am very grateful for this. I have felt throughout this nasty situation that there are decent people in this world and the help I receive confirms this for me.

MORE DELAYS!

Blog on Workplace Bullying, Bullying by Social Media, Bullying in the Civil Service, Patient Confidentiality, Why Do People Bully, Workplace Bullying

The nasty behaviour continues: one of my “haters” (who has probably never even had a conversation with me) has put a notice on social media asking people to let them know where I am now.  I have had to relocate to a town many miles away from my previous home because of the persistent threats, attempts to harm me and various forms of abuse.

Continue reading MORE DELAYS! →

HEALTH PROVIDERS

Confidentiality, NHS operations, Patient Confidentiality

The lack of respect for patient confidentiality in my case by several health workers in my locality is very concerning.  This includes a medical professional who made repeated breaches and an administrative worker employed by the local health authority, as well as two administrative workers employed by a private health care provider on contract to the local health authority.  (As previously stated, counselling notes were also deleted from my medical notes by another administrative worker when I asked for a copy of them.)

I believe that the latest breach of patient confidentiality was raised with the health authority.  Unsurprisingly, I have not been asked by them for details of this.  Therefore, the version related by the administrative worker appears to have been believed as no further action seems to have been taken.

I am not sure that correct procedures are therefore followed by this health authority.

I hope that firm action has been taken to prevent future breaches of patient confidentiality.  Although in my own case I believe that generally I have received good health care, I am concerned that my local health authority has not respected medical information as it should.  Because of this, a health symptom I have will now have to be investigated once I have moved out of the area.

Finally, I understand that improvements have been made to the conditions of one group of staff who were being targeted for raising concerns about patient care and am very glad about this.

MY FORMER EMPLOYER

Blog on Workplace Bullying, Bullying by Social Media, Bullying in the Civil Service, Bullying in the Workplace, Civil Service, Monitoring the Civil Service, Online Bullying, Toxic Organisations, Workplace Bullying

In earlier posts I have written about the culture of bullying prevalent in some departments during the years I worked for my former employer.  My own experience was that after some years of working there to everyone’s satisfaction, I was bullied by a line manager.  When I asked to  be put on a different team, it took a year before I was offered a move.  [I understand that there had been a number of previous complaints of bullying against this line manager so management should have been aware of the issues.]

Continue reading MY FORMER EMPLOYER →

LOCAL PUBLIC SERVICES

Blog on Workplace Bullying, Bullying in the Civil Service, Bullying in the Workplace, Civil Service, Confidentiality, Freedom of Information Act, Monitoring the Civil Service, Patient Confidentiality, Requesting Personal Information from Public Service, Requests for SAR prints, SAR requests, Workplace Bullying Blog

There are certain aspects of public services in the area I live in which cause me concern:

Firstly, as I have detailed in earlier posts my former employer behaved in a cavalier way towards me.  I was of course bullied and then had no alternative but to leave the job I had done to my employer’s satisfaction for over 12 years.

Continue reading LOCAL PUBLIC SERVICES →

WARNING ON “PATIENT CONFIDENTIALITY”

Confidentiality, NHS operations, Patient Confidentiality

If you are planning to have treatment in a private hospital, I would strongly advise that you question the staff closely about what guarantees will be given on patient confidentiality.  This applies whether you are going to be a private patient or are an NHS patient due to receive treatment in a private hospital.  If you are going to be a paying patient then consider getting legal advice on making patient confidentiality a term of your contract with the private hospital.

Continue reading WARNING ON “PATIENT CONFIDENTIALITY” →

BREACH OF CONFIDENTIALITY – UPDATE 2

Confidentiality, NHS operations, Patient Confidentiality

I complained to the healthcare provider which is currently contracted to perform certain NHS operations about the breach of confidentiality.  Below is part of the reply I received:

” . . . I can confirm that no one at [. . . . .] has ever had access to any of your counselling notes.  The medical records we have are only in relation to the consultation and treatment for your foot.  . . . We hold a tracker of any NHS notes requested from [NHS healthcare provider’s name] and this demonstrates that your NHS notes have never been ordered from them.”

Continue reading BREACH OF CONFIDENTIALITY – UPDATE 2 →