NHS difficile - The Times 15th November 2007

I am a local GP, and several of my patients died from Clostridium difficile in Maidstone Hospital. As a GP representative for 20 years I have never before dealt with such an arrogant hospital management which treated its employees, including consultants, with contempt, some threats and a degree of bullying. My perception of self-justification has been reinforced by the letter from the former chairman (Nov 12), who resigned recently, shortly after the chief executive. He makes the case that the trust, under his watch, has been unfairly treated as the 90 deaths only “accounted for just 1 per cent of the national picture”. There is no acknowledgement that if management had done its job properly, and listened, some of those 90 innocent victims would be alive today. Unfortunately, it seems, its main goal was to deliver a new PFI hospital rather than proper care of Maidstone residents.

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