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.

One then senior manager had been instrumental in me leaving my job because he  decided not to act on concerns and complaints I had raised (I know he was informed of them).  I understand that he believed it would all be forgotten in time so the risks to my mental and physical health were, apparently, immaterial.  Rather surprisingly, after I resigned he was  given the task of resolving the situation.  He could possibly have felt that it would be in his own interests to delay matters.  I believe it would have been better for a more senior manager who was not involved to deal with this as he or she would be more objective and simply want to complete the set task: which should of course have been to resolve matters without delay.

Secondly, I think we all agree that we are fortunate to have the excellent healthcare services we enjoy.  In my own case, I believe the actual healthcare I have received over the years has been very good.  However, there are some issues in my locality which, to me, stand out for rather more negative reasons.

There have been breaches of patient confidentiality, one of which was denied by a private health organisation which holds an NHS contract.

Over the last few days, there has been another breach of patient confidentiality: I heard a  neighbour mentioning to his relatives details of a recent visit I had made to a local walk-in centre.  As far as I am aware, he does not work in any type of health care organisation which means that someone he knows (and I think this is most probably not a relative of his) has breached patient confidentiality.  His relatives quickly stopped him from saying any more and I feel that almost certainly the information about me went no further on this occasion.  It would probably be sufficient for the employee concerned to receive a final warning and more training [although I realise that this is not my decision].

I do not feel that this latest breach was as serious as that from, say, the private health organisation.  Information from this earlier breach of patient confidentiality circulated widely throughout my locality.  It caused me a lot of distress because it was very personal and should definitely not have happened.

I do feel that more emphasis MUST be given to patient confidentiality locally as this is one of the major tenets of health care.  Even though funds are stretched, money would be well spent on more training  for staff on the importance of protecting patient confidentiality at all times.

In addition, my perfectly legitimate requests for copies of documents from my medical records have not been fulfilled.  One of these related to counselling notes which had been added to my medical notes – although I had been told by the counsellor concerned that she did not keep notes of counselling sessions (is it acceptable to distort the truth this way to  your patients?)

Also, I have known of employees who have raised concerns about some aspects of patient care.  Life at work then appears to have been made difficult for them so that they left  their jobs.  Some have then been threatened with disciplinary proceedings – which means they could lose the pensions they worked for many years to contribute towards.  Surely, managers in a caring profession should have the maturity and objectivity to recognise that such people, who care enough about their patients’ best interests to put their jobs on the line, generally help to keep standards of care high.  Punishing them because they have the courage and integrity to highlight certain practices they are unhappy about is surely not the best way forward.

I feel that it is time to give serious consideration to sending an open letter to relevant parties setting out the issues and seeking a public inquiry into certain failings and arbitrary practices of some local public organisations.  I will start to draft the letter over the next few days.