- Conference
- 2014 Health Care Service Group Conference
- Date
- 7 December 2013
- Decision
- Carried
Following the publishing of the Francis, Keogh and Berwick reports into Mid Staffs it has become abundantly clear that much of the failures were organisational in nature. Further, that these failings in part were condoned by very senior and executive staff within that organisation.
Clearly, the Government shows some recognition of the organisational failures within Mid Staffs and have now taken some steps to prevent those failures from ever happening again, but are those steps enough?
So far, since the publication of these documents much of the focus has been on the regulation and revalidation of individual health care professionals to ensure that they are fit to practice. It is clearly accepted that all of the professionals have a clear duty to demonstrate their fitness to practice. However, it should also be accepted that the health care regulatory and governing bodies should also have the ability to protect their registrants from those unscrupulous employers who are failing to deliver safe and effective care.
The Nursing and Midwifery Council for example, clearly states that their role is to protect the public from unsafe practitioners but surely the registrants whose fees fund the work of these bodies deserve to be protected from organisations which are failing to deliver a high level of safe and effective care.
Conference, even without the Mid Staffs issues it is clear that when UNISON members are reported to their regulators there may be evidence of poor staffing levels, dilute skills mix and financial constraints which have jeopardised the delivery of safe and effective care within their individual cases. The regulators should have clear and concise pathways in place to allow further investigations and scrutiny not just for the registrant but also for the organisation which that registrant works within.
There are also cases where a registrant has approached their regulator with concerns around failings within their organisations only to be told that investigating these failings does not come under the remit of the regulator.
We call upon the Health Service Group Executive to:
1)organise a conference of registered practitioners bringing together the Government, the Professional Regulators and Governing Bodies;
2)address the issues faced by health care practitioners;
3)clearly focus on the organisation’s failings and not just the health care practitioners;
4)achieve a more focused approach to investigating health care organisations where there are signs that those organisations are failing and address the failings, within current legislation to hold organisations to account.