There is no doubt that Britain’s National Health Service (NHS) is the envy of most countries. For all its lack of funding, staff shortages and medical mistakes the NHS still offer the best patient care.
However, in any large organisation such as the NHS with its 1.4 million people working within there are bound to be mistakes and malpractice and staff not performing to the best of their abilities. The problems we have in the medical profession is that we do not strive to maintain the ‘first do, no harm’ mentality.
If we prevent doctors and nurses from reporting incidents, practices which could be causing lives of patients. We become inhibitors giving those who are harming patients a blueprint to continue bad behaviour and telling them we believe that they are above the law of the land.
According to a media article regarding the Gosport War Memorial Hospital investigation. It is, claimed that 465 patients might have had their lives shortened after they were, prescribed powerful opiate painkillers.
In my opinion, this investigation should be the one that opened the door for those involved with patient care. They must be, given the ability to report any suspicious activities whether it is a doctor or nursing staff, without the fear of recriminations.
Gosport Memorial Hospital may be the tip of the iceberg but, unless policies and procedures are put in place to protect so-called whistleblowers, we may never know how many people lost their lives in our hospitals unnecessarily.
What the public require is if the investigations provide evidence that there were severe negligence on the part of medical staff, they must be brought up on charges, made to face the consequences of their actions.
We cannot as a society decide that we will have one law for some, especially those in the medical profession and another law for others. Individuals within the medical service such as doctors, nurses, consultants, general practitioners, must know that when they break the rules, they will be held accountable for their actions