I pointed out my evidence for concern about the reading ability of ‘some’ UK doctors at 16/07/2024 in Reading ability of UK doctors could be stuck at UK Year 9.
As ‘some’ will be aware, I like to have evidence – when I can find it – to support what am saying. And – I gather evidence as I go. In this post I present more evidence.
An article from The Times (07/09/2024) ‘721 children in rogue surgeon investigation at Great Ormond Street‘ was posted by someone who is not me, in a forum. [The link may go dead soon]
My evidence is supplied below that ‘some’ people – some of them probably doctors had difficulty with reading and/or comprehension.
The relevance is connected to what I said in the forum as quoted below. How? If ‘people’ have difficulty reading a media article, what can I expect for their reading of 2000 pages of the most important inquiry into the NHS. But if not would they have read, understood and retained some of the media publications about the inquiry back around 2001-2005?
I searched this thread and found that the words: ‘Bristol’, ‘heart’, ‘surgery‘ did not appear (up to this time 16:45PM 08/09/2024. I had to wonder about that.
Bristol heart scandal occurred in England during the 1990s. At the Bristol Royal Infirmary, unusually high death rates following cardiac surgery were found. It was estimated that between 1984 and 1995, 30-35 children under one year of age died in the unit who would likely have survived in other NHS units. Overall, it’s believed that 170 children died at the Bristol unit between 1984 and 1995 who would have survived in other NHS hospitals.
It was probably the most expensive public inquiry into the NHS in medical history at £14 million; £30 Million in today’s money according to BOE inflation calculator.
An inquiry, chaired by Professor Ian Kennedy QC, was set up in 1998 and reported in 2001. It concluded that paediatric cardiac surgery services at Bristol were “simply not up to the task” due to:
- Shortages of key surgeons and nurses
- A lack of leadership, accountability, and teamwork
- An “old boy’s culture” amongst doctors
- A lax approach to safety
- Secrecy about doctors’ performance
- A lack of monitoring by management
The scandal led to significant changes in the way the NHS operates, including expected increased transparency around doctors’ and hospitals’ performance and a greater emphasis on patient safety.
The inquiry report was published in July 2001 – 540 pages. Annex A of the report – 1538 pages.
Who were the main ‘players’?
- Dr John Roylance – Chief Executive – escaped the GMC on grounds of ‘remoteness’.
- James Wisheart – Surgeon
- Janardan Dhasmana – Surgeon
- Stephen Bolsin – Anaesthetist – and whistleblower: hounded out of the UK and had to got to Australia. [I exchanged emails with him]
- Private Eye!
- Royal College of Surgeons
- GMC
- Dept. of Health
The inquiry report said, “The NHS is still failing to learn from the things that go wrong and has no system to put this right. This must change. Even today, it is not possible to say, categorically, that events similar to those which happened at Bristol could not happen again in the UK or indeed, are not happening at this moment.” The double negative meant that they thought that it was still happening.
Conclusions
There is emerging evidence that ‘people’ not just doctors have reading problems. ‘Some’ will reach for dyslexia as an explanation. I will reach for ‘plain laziness’!