bruised uk
survivors making waves "just one drop"
Week ending February 24, 2008
Mental health nurses suffer constant attacks
Prevention of Suicide
in Kent
A Topic Meeting being
held at the Trinity Foyer, 20 Church Street, Maidstone,
Kent ME14 1LY on Wednesday 20 February 2008 from 2.00 pm- 4.00 pm
Programme
| 1. | Introduction and Welcome by Pat Still, Chair, Kent and Medway NHS & Social Care PPI Forum |
| 2. | Keynote Speakers: |
| a) Chris Morgan, Programme Lead, for
Suicide Prevention,
South East Development Centre, National Institute for Mental Health in England | |
| b) Stephen Reynolds, Service Manager, Prison In-reach, Kent & Medway NHS & Social Care Partnership Trust | |
| 3. | Tea Break and to collect in question slips |
| 4. | Question and Answer Session to Panel comprising: |
| Margaret Bell, Maidstone Samaritans | |
| Chris Morgan, Programme Lead, for Suicide
Prevention,
South East Development Centre, National Institute for Mental Health in England | |
| Stephen Reynolds, Kent and Medway NHS & Social Care Partnership Trust | |
| Jean Robinson, Survivors of Suicide by Bereavement | |
| 5. | Stephen Finnimore – Summaries and any proposals from meeting. |
| 6. | Close of meeting and thanks to attendees by Pat Still. |
Pay-off for bug trust chief
Rose Gibb, who resigned days before Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust was criticised in a report on the outbreak of Clostridium difficile, is set to receive half her £150,000 salary as a pay-off.
The trust said it took legal advice before deciding on paying the severance deal but stressed Ms Gibb would only be given her legal entitlement of six months salary.
In ordering the trust to withhold the payment last year, Mr Johnson warned the trust that it could be acting unlawfully in agreeing a cash package for Ms Gibb.
The trust decision to pay Ms Gibb £75,000 has the support of the Department of Health and the strategic health authority.
But shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley said: “All Alan Johnson’s posturing about pay-off arrangements will offer no comfort to the patients and the families affected.”
The Healthcare Commission report into the outbreak concluded that C diff was definitely or probably the main cause of death for 90 patients after finding washing facilities were filthy and a shortage of nurses.
Campaign group Health Emergency described the payment as “a kick in the teeth for the friends and relatives of those who died.”
The Health and Safety executive and Kent Police and the Health are still reviewing whether there will be any prosecutions as a result of the C.diff outbreak.
An investigation by Detective Chief Inspector Rob Vinson and former Kent Police detective Peter George resulted in nine Pitcairners being jailed in 2004. They were given sentences of up to six years in connection with more than 100 offences. Heavy-handed On the island, the 50 or so residents, most of whom are direct descendants of the Bounty mutineers, are still struggling to come to terms with the trials held there and in New Zealand three years ago. The three men still imprisoned in Pitcairn’s six-cell jail – complete with two guards each – are a constant reminder of the trials. Most islanders feel that they were treated in a heavy-handed way by the British authorities.
The sex abuse case was triggered after allegations were made to Kent police constable, Gail Cox, who was stationed temporarily on Pitcairn in 1999. She uncovered evidence that underage rape and sexual assault had been an unspoken part of the island’s culture for generations.
DCI Vinson, 40, from Broadstairs, said he was proud of his success in the Pitcairn case – despite the criticism it received at the time of the investigation. In a report in June 2003, BBC journalist Michael Brooke, compared the huge cost of the investigation and resulting trials with that of Pitcairn’s expenditure. He said that the island cost about £250,000 a year to administer from a unit in New Zealand, which paid for transport and issuing postage stamps. “Compare this with the financial tap which gushes freely, courtesy of UK taxpayers, to fund this judicial process,” he said. “A Pitcairn logistics team, with swanky offices in Auckland and a chief residing in an Auckland hotel for two years, has built remand space on Pitcairn for six accused, plus accommodation for prosecution and defence lawyers. “Investigating officers from the Kent constabulary have winged to and fro between England and New Zealand in business class seats.” He said the cost ran into millions of pounds. At the same time, the island community desperately needed money to upgrade facilities. “No wonder the community feels it is being punished for the alleged sins of the few,” said Mr Brooke. DCI Vinson said this week: “Many thought that I was living it up in paradise, having so much fun. “But it was anything but. It was intense and exhausting work in great isolation in a place that could be volatile. This was my focus for more than six years. That commitment was personally not easy. “The real heroes were the victims who stood firm to tell their stories. This was the silent voice of Pitcairn finally heard and believed.”
The officer, who is based at Margate police station, first visited Pitcairn in early 2000. What followed were trips thousands of miles away from the familiar confines of his role in the Kent force and his wife and three children. To get to the island was difficult enough. Access was via a passing container ship and transfer by an unsteady rope ladder to the waiting wooden boat below.
A Kent Police spokeswoman said: “Once there, the island’s beauty, belied a challenging environment, not before widely revealed to the rest of the world. Unlawful and non-consensual sex was commonplace, an unspoken part of the culture for generations. “The police investigation was seen by many as part of a wider British conspiracy to depopulate Pitcairn. The women themselves were blamed for speaking out. ”More than 30 victims, both male and female, were interviewed on Pitcairn and in New Zealand, Australia, Norfolk Island, America and Britain. To add to the trauma, some were not only revisiting difficult times in their past, but had never shared their secrets with their families before.
The police spokeswoman added: “The relationships and allegations were often confused, ambiguous or incestuous, adding to the complexity of the case.” Kent Police’s Peter George, who worked with DCI Vinson on the Pitcairn case, was also awarded an MBE in the New Year Honours List. Secured The former detective inspector, who is now a civilian police worker, said: “Pitcairn became much more than just another job. It was a very difficult, but ultimately rewarding investigation. “I would like to pay tribute to the victims in the case who stood firm and gave evidence without which we would not have secured nine out of ten convictions.” Herbert Ford, director of the Pitcairn Islands Study Centre, in Angwin, California, last visited Pitcairn in September.
The Emeritus Professor of Journalism at Pacific Union College set up the centre in 1977 to combat “misinformation” about Pitcairn and says he is one of the few people to be trusted by islanders. Mr Ford said most Pitcairners felt angry about the way the trials were conducted. “It is the belief of more than three fourth of the Pitcairn people that the UK used a giant club to their head in the Pitcairn trials to handle a matter that if handled by the already existing – British-written – Pitcairn law would not have held all Pitcairners up to worldwide public hatred, ridicule and contempt,” he told this newspaper. One Pitcairner this week posted a sarcastic message on www.kentnews.co.uk responding to our news item about the award of the two MBEs. The islander, called Melva and now hailing from Anchorage, Alaska, said: “Join me in extending congratulations to the officers, whose legacy is a mangled community (yours could be next).Way to go, Vinson.”
Kari Boye Young, from Adamstown, the capital of Pitcairn, wrote: “Brits are making sure the world will never doubt that your mission to destroy Pitcairn was unwarranted, there ISLAND SECRETS: Pitcairn Island, a tiny dot in the Pacific Ocean, harboured a culture of abuse which was brought to light by Kent Police
are medals left, right and centre.” The community on the island has been split by the trials, Mr Ford suggested. “About three families feel the Brits had/have a right to do whatever they want with Pitcairn – it is but a straw in the wind that can be blown by the UK in any direction it desires. “The minority group is shunned in a number of ways by the majority, and of course, the minority group doesn’t usually invite at least some of the majority to their doings.”
Paroled Two of the Pitcairners jailed in 2004 have been released to be detained at home, one of which is due to be paroled completely, said Mr Ford. Six New Zealand corrections officers guard the three. Weather permitting, the men are out most days working under guard, but when they return to jail they are kept secure by a 15ft high fence – even though there is little chance of escape from the island. Mr Ford added: “There is also a Scottish police officer and a Pitcairn police officer on Pitcairn, making it one of the world’s most heavily policed spots anywhere. “And, of course, it is impossible to get off of Pitcairn by ship without everybody knowing about it.
Kent on Sunday
A MENTAL health care worker at St Martin’s Hospital in Canterbury has been charged with a second rape. The charge came after an alleged attack on a 39-year-old woman in Margate in the early hours of August 16. John Mendy, 32, of Sandwich Road in Ramsgate, is currently remanded in custody after being charged with the rape and serious sexual assault of a woman in Canterbury on November 15. He is due to appear at Canterbury Crown Court again on 21 January.
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Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust said Bruce Sheppey, Gina Jennings and Simon Ingman resigned with immediate effect. All three joined last year.
Aaron Cockell and Jonathan Paine will leave at the end of the month. They are near the end of a first four-year term.
It follows calls for the board to be disbanded by Kent MP Hugh Robertson.
The Mid Kent and Faversham Tory MP called for the move while speaking at a rally which followed a damning Healthcare Commission report into two outbreaks of the clostridium difficile superbug at the trust's three hospitals.
'Awful chapter'
At least 90 patients died between 2004 and 2006, caused by a "litany" of errors in infection control, the report said.
About 500 people attended Tuesday's meeting to discuss cleanliness as well as proposed changes to hospital services.
Mr Robertson said: "I think the original board should go completely.
"If anything positive is to come out of this awful chapter it must be a real commitment, firstly, to stamp out C.diff, but secondly to put patients right back at the heart of the NHS."
But trust chief executive Glenn Douglas, who also runs Ashford and St Peter's Hospitals NHS Trust in Surrey, said work to restore confidence was under way.
"Together with the new interim chairman, George Jenkins, we intend to build the organisation up to one that is confident and [has a] positive future," he said.
On Monday, it was revealed that two healthcare assistants had been sacked from Maidstone Hospital.
A staff nurse and another healthcare assistant at the Kent and Sussex Hospital in Tunbridge Wells had also been disciplined over care standards.
The trust board includes five non-executive directors, who are members of the public living in the area that the trust serves, who respond to advertisements for posts.
The chairperson is appointed by the Secretary of State for Health and the other non-Executive members are appointed by the NHS Appointments Commission, according to the NHS trust website.
Two are sacked after bug deaths
- The Guardian
- Tuesday November 13 2007
Two healthcare assistants have been sacked from the NHS trust at the centre of a deadly outbreak of the Clostridium difficile bug, it was disclosed today.
One staff nurse and another healthcare assistant have been disciplined but will remain at the Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, a trust spokesman said.
The sanctions come in the fallout from a Healthcare Commission report and as police and health and safety officials continue investigations into patient care at the trust. The two dismissed members of staff worked at Maidstone hospital and the others are employed at the Kent and Sussex hospital in Tunbridge Wells.
The action followed an investigation into care standards at the trust, the spokesman said. The commission's report revealed a catalogue of errors that allowed the bug to thrive in hospitals under the trust's management, contributing to outbreaks that were linked to 90 deaths.
A total of 345 people died while infected with the bug and more than 1,100 people were infected across a two-year period, prompting the health secretary, Alan Johnson, to apologise for the "truly scandalous" outbreak.
Boss of superbug-scandal hospitals is set to get six-figure sum - and so is her partner
Last updated at 13:04pm on 15th October 2007 The hospital boss at the centre of Britain's deadliest superbug outbreak looks likely to get her controversial pay-off despite attempts by the Health Secretary to block it.
Rose Gibb resigned from her £150,000 post as an NHS trust chief executive last Friday, days before it was revealed that at least 90 patients had died from clostridium difficile.
As it emerged that Miss Gibb's partner quit his own similar post with another trust last week, and may also be in line for a six-figure pay-off, Alan Johnson ordered Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells Trust to halt any payment to Miss Gibb.
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Rose Gibb: 90 patients died from C. difficile
Using his powers to intervene in the running of a "failing trust", Mr Johnson ordered that her pay-off - rumoured to be more than £250,000 - should be put on hold while legal advice was sought about blocking the payment entirely.
But legal experts warned that the Health Secretary may be powerless to stop Miss Gibb, who faces possible criminal charges as chief executive of the trust which saw the worst superbug outbreak in NHS history, from receiving the severance package.
Shirley Wright from employment law specialists Eversheds said: "There are specific provisions in the fixed-term contracts which chief executives are often on.
"There are also specific provisions for the termination of senior managers in the NHS and it is unlikely that Mr Johnson would be able to intervene to stop any pay-off in those circumstances."
Miss Gibb stepped down less than a week before the publication of a damning report into the ward conditions which allowed the infection to spread like wildfire through three hospitals managed by the trust.
In all, appalling hygiene standards across the hospitals contributed to the deaths of up to 270 patients and the infection of more than 1,100 in less than three years.
A Health Care Commission report said that too much focus on cutting debts and hitting Government targets contributed to the outbreak at Kent and Sussex Hospital in Tunbridge Wells, Pembury Hospital and Maidstone Hospital.
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Maidstone: The hospital at the centre of the scandal
As police began an unprecedented investigation into possible manslaughter charges, hospital staff attacked the trust for allowing Miss Gibb to resign.
Unison officer Simon Bolton said: "The staff all feel she has been allowed to get away with it - she has not been made to face the music.
"Miss Gibb had a reputation for not liking bad news and there were a lot of people saying there were problems but she was not listening."
It is unclear how much Miss Gibb is due to receive, but a person agreeing to leave such a position would commonly receive between two and three years' pay.
Trust accounts indicate that she received benefits of £5,000 and £12,500 in pension last year in addition to her salary.
Miss Gibb is being helped to fight her case by Managers in Partnership, the union for health service managers.
In a statement, the union said: "We have been representing the former chief executive of Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust with the employer.
"As things stand, for legal reasons, as Miss Gibb's trade union representatives, we are precluded from commenting directly or indirectly on the matters of massive public concern raised by this case."
• Days before Miss Gibb handed in her resignation, her partner also quit his job as a hospital boss, it has emerged.
Mark Rees had enjoyed the same £150,000 salary as Miss Gibb for more than four years as chief executive of Barking, Havering and Redbridge NHS Trust.
But on the morning of Monday October 1 he dramatically quit, announcing his decision before taking his coat and leaving.
It is rumoured that he too may be in line for a six-figure pay-off, although the trust refused to discuss the details.
Hospital sources yesterday described his departure just before his partner as a "coincidence", but privately many staff were puzzled.
Although the trust has long-standing debts and Mr Rees had recently ordered staff to make cuts of £ 2million a month, his resignation did not come at a time of particular crisis for the trust.
A source said: "The management knew he was thinking about leaving, but it was not reported to staff until the day. No one knows his reasoning."
Yesterday Mr Rees refused to comment at the £700,000 home near Cobham, Kent, which he shares with Miss Gibb, their two young children and Miss Gibb's 22-year-old daughter from a previous relationship.
Once one of the 20 most highly paid NHS bosses in the UK, he said his partner was seeking legal advice.
Previously Mr Rees was chief executive of Bromley Hospitals NHS Trust for ten years, where Miss Gibb worked as a director before moving to Maidstone and Tunbridge NHS Trust.
Minister blocks '£400,000 pay-off' for chief of hospitals where superbug killed 90
Last updated at 22:41pm on 14th October 2007
The boss of the health trust where at least 90 patients died in a superbug outbreak could be in line for a £400,000 pay-off, it emerged yesterday.
News of the "golden goodbye" immediately prompted Health Secretary Alan Johnson to make an extraordinary intervention into the row over filthy NHS wards.
He ordered the health trust in Kent to withhold any payment to Rose Gibb, who was chief executive there during the deadliest hospital superbug outbreak in NHS history.
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'Golden goodbye': Rose Gibb, the NHS trust's former chief
Miss Gibb resigned her £150,000-a-year post less than a week before the publication of a damning report into the ward conditions which allowed the infection to spread like wildfire through three hospitals managed by the trust.
In all, appalling hygiene standards across the hospitals contributed to the deaths of up to 270 patients and the infection of more than 1,100.
As police began an unprecedented investigation into possible manslaughter charges, campaigners demanded to know exactly how much money Miss Gibb will receive after leaving her post last Friday.
Last night Mr Johnson stepped into the row, saying: "I have instructed the trust to withhold any severance payment to the former chief executive of Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells NHS Trust, pending legal advice."
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Infection outbreak: The Maidstone Hospital
Trust sources last night confirmed that Miss Gibb has been promised a pay-off of 'more than £100,000'.
One source said she could be paid as much as £400,000.
A pay-off of that scale would be in line with common practice that a person agreeing to leave such a position would receive between two and three years' pay.
A spokesman for the Department of Health said the Health Secretary had the legal right to require a trust to suspend payment to a former chief executive. Legal advice was being sought over whether any pay-off could be completely refused.
Officers from Kent Police are already reviewing whether mismanagement by chiefs at Kent and Sussex Hospital in Tunbridge Wells, Pembury Hospital and Maidstone Hospital amounted to a criminal act.
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Dirty conditions: Cups in a sink of a 'clean' utility room on Culpepper ward, Maidstone Hospital
Crammed : Beds sit so close they're almost touching
As Miss Gibb refused to comment from her £700,000 home near Cobham in Kent, it also emerged she had failed to honour a pledge made in 2004 to clean up her wards.
Her hollow promise followed an undercover BBC investigation in 2004 which exposed poor cleaning and infection control even before the first major outbreak began.
After the TV programme was screened, Miss Gibb promised to sort out hygiene in "six to nine months" - but nothing was done to stop the biggest recorded outbreak of C Diff the NHS has seen.
Despite assurances from the current management that the problem is now under control, Kent Air Ambulance yesterday announced that it had suspended all flights to Maidstone Hospital for the foreseeable future.
It said it had a "duty to patients" to avoid the hospital.
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Patient: Jackie Mason with a picture of her father, Joe Nixon, who died after contracting chlostridium difficile at Maidstone
Last night the trust continued to refuse to say how much Miss Gibb had received after she agreed to step down by mutual consent, saying the "financial arrangements are confidential".
But Geoff Martin, of campaign group Health Emergency, said: "I have heard from Maidstone NHS staff that Rose Gibb is rumoured to have received a massive payoff from the trust.
"If it's true, we have a right to know how much taxpayers' money is involved and it would fuel the scandal even more if it turns out that senior managers have walked away from this carnage with their pockets stuffed with NHS cash."
He said people at the trust had told him that the pay-out was in the region of £300,000 to £400,000.
The undercover BBC investigation in June 2004 at the Kent and Sussex Hospital revealed bloodstained walls, overflowing skips of clinical waste and a "culture of laziness" among cleaning staff.
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Hazard: A container for sharp medical equipment is left open
Dirty: A toi