Select Committee on Home Affairs Written Evidence


26. Memorandum submitted by the NHS Confederation

  The NHS Confederation welcomes the proposed legislation which we believe is not unreasonable and addresses a failing in the current legislation.

  However, we feel there should be further clarification of the term "Senior Managers" which can mean a variety of things depending upon the industry people work in. We believe that in the NHS it should include Directors and those who report directly to them and no-one else. At the same time we do wonder whether it is possible that the definition of a senior manager is irrelevant if a breach is to result in the whole Board being prosecuted. Clarification on this issue would be helpful if we can have it.

  We recognise that this proposed legislation is, at least in part, a reaction to recent high profile cases that have attracted a wide ranging press coverage and have stuck in the minds of the public. It is therefore not likely that legislators are intending the legislation to lead to an increase in cases against NHS organisations. However, death is an everyday part of work in the NHS and we live in a society where the public are less inclined to accept that a bad outcome can exist without failure or blame. We are concerned about the likelihood of investigations into deaths in the NHS as a result of complaints by such relatives. It concerns us that once the new legislation has been introduced there will be a flood of complaints from relatives who believe their nearest and dearest need not have died. Whilst it is extremely unlikely that any such complaints and subsequent investigations would result in a prosecution they would never the less be very time consuming and stressful for staff and managers and we do not believe this is what the Home Office intended. We shall be happy to receive assurances that the police will act in a sensitive and sensible manner in such cases.

16 June 2005





 
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