East Lancashire hospitals dossier 'is flawed'

2:56pm Friday 16th May 2008

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By Camilla Sutcliffe »

A DOSSIER of health "horror stories" is "riddled with inaccuracies", health bosses have said.

Liberal Democrat councillors in Burnley and Pendle have spent six months compiling a list of complaints from patients and staff about alleged failings at Royal Blackburn Hospital and Burnley General Hospital since the controversial move of emergency facilities and beds to Blackburn.

But a letter from Health Minister Ann Keen to Pendle MP, Gordon Prentice has revealed that 35 out of 42 allegations in a draft copy of the dossier handed to former chief executive Jo Cubbon were "unsubstantiated", and that half of the complaints had no relevance to the November shake-up.

Liberal Democrats said the document had been given in good faith to Mrs Cubbon, who left the trust in April, following calls from Pendle and Burnley councils for the sacking of the entire East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust board, which runs both hospitals.

The draft document made it clear that no claim made was complete, thorough, or well-researched.

Colne councillor and Liberal Democrat peer Tony Greaves, who led the compilation of the dossier, said the final, fully-researched document still had not been handed to East Lancashire Primary Care Trust, which has agreed to act as a broker between the councillors and hospital bosses.

Pendle MP Gordon Prentice, who publicised the comments from Mrs Keen, said the lack of a new document from the councillors meant that both MPs and hospital bosses had no other way to investigate their claims.

He said: "I'm lost for words. They have been saying it will be handed over any day for weeks, but nothing has been handed over, except this document.

"The whole thing has been hyped up over a period of months, but from what has been seen in the draft copy, it will be a damp squib."

He urged patients to go through hospital complaints procedures and speak to their MP if they had a grievance, and said campaigners should call on the health scrutiny committees of Lancashire County Council and Blackburn with Darwen Council, the only bodies able to call for a government-backed independent review.

Coun Greaves said: "We never said this was about Meeting Patients' Needs. It is about the present situation in East Lancashire. We have hundreds of stories of people who do not wish to have their names and addresses published but this is not about individual cases."

Gary Graham, acting chief executive of East Lancashire Hospitals NHS Trust said: "Even though this document asserted that it may not be complete, we felt it was our duty to investigate. We found that many of the claims were unsubstantiated or were impossible to corroborate as the details were so vague.

"Once again I would urge anyone with a concern to approach the hospitals directly as we can offer guidance on the spot."