UKC

I couldn't see anything on UKC about this, and just wondered what people thought of it.  Leaving emotion aside, it clearly has some implications which the general public may not be fully aware of.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-42816913

http://www.bmj.com/content/359/bmj.j5534

Plus plenty of other coverage out there.

Looks like the consultant knew someone had to carry the can and it wasn't going to be him.

He certainly scarpered pretty quickly. 

Open letter from some senior clinicians about the case (before the latest trial)  http://54000doctors.org/blogs/an-account-by-concerned-uk-paediatric-consult...

This case flags a number of issues.

Doctors use case review and reflection of events as part of learning to avoid the same errors in future. This case used these reflections as evidence against the doctor.  Will this mean that doctors are more closed in reporting errors, and less reflective when errors happen?  If so, patient care may suffer.

The GMC stated that workload is not an excuse for errors which happen.  If you read the above letter (and if it is factually correct), you will see this doctor was put in a position that made errors much more likely.  She is being punished for a failure across a system.  

If people are off and doctors are asked to cover their work, what should they do?  Refuse and leave patients at risk, or do the work and leave themselves open to the GMC/ courts punishing them?

This ruling has potentially significant consequences on how doctors view matters.

Mmmm… I hope I never fall ill in Leicester.

My partner's father was basically killed by Leicester Royal Infirmary. He broke his neck, was told there was nothing wrong, went back a few days latter and the break was discovered. Well, they put him in traction with far too much weight being used and whilst off his head on morphine he tried to get up causing massive damage and paralysing him from the neck down. 18 terrible months later (and after a year in Stoke Mandeville) he passed away.

LRI settled out of court, but I wonder if my partner's family should have tried to take more action.

Two very tragic and avoidable outcomes.

Difference between negligence and a mistake. Nothing worse than hearing people say we will learn from our error when there has been some entirely preventable catastrophe.

Seems strange the medical body wanted to go further than the court.

It would seem that the target for litigation would be the institution for massive understaffing/under resourcing. 

I also fail to see why the consultant got away - I'll bet a little digging would reveal that his "teaching" was an extracurricular activity for which he was paid in addition to his pay for his day job. You can't be supervising and in a different city. But, of course, he's "one of us", not "one of them". 

At this level of underfunding and blaming, it is highly likely that the NHS will end up with an over-testing CYA environment like the US. Which, of course, will be very nice for the privatized testing labs/radiology companies/labour contractors. The radiology, in particular, can be outsourced to a place with lower costs with no trouble at all. 

I found the boy's mother's reported response to the decision rather distasteful.  "Satisfied" maybe, or even "relieved" if she thought that it would reduce the risk of such an incident in the future (though I note that there seems to be a sizeable faction in the medical world which actually believes the opposite to be the case), but "elated"?  Really?  Even if she thought that the trainee doctor had killed her son deliberately, I'd say that would be going a bit far.

Yes, a very strange choice of word, but is perhaps excusable under such desperately sad circumstances.

I suppose the fact that it has been deemed to be somebody’s fault rather than just systemic failings (which, ironically could actually be addressed) gives more of a sense of ‘closure’?  

Particularly if, as is suggested in the link above, it was the parents that gave the dose of enalapril which probably precipitated his arrest.