A fundamental review of accountability

I read Ella Rhodes' informative report on the Infected Blood Inquiry [July/August] with great interest.

I have been a participant member of the enquiry having lost my brother to AIDS acquired through infected blood products. The events were awful and avoidable, but it is not the only NHS scandal and it is unlikely to be the last until there is a root and branch reform of professional accountability.

Sir Brian Langstaff called for a duty of candour and some form of mechanism to ensure that government and organisations are mandated to implement the recommendations of major, public inquiries.

As members will be aware, a duty of candour exists for health professionals and in theory, it also exists for senior managers and directors of NHS providers. Except that it doesn't. Various public enquiries stretching back more than two decades have consistently revealed cloaks of secrecy that protect organisational reputation, together with the scapegoating of individual members of staff and the use of contractual gagging orders.

Until NHS managers and directors are covered by a binding professional code of conduct akin to that of clinicians they will continue to obfuscate and bow to pressure from corporate lawyers to the detriment of patients and staff.

Perhaps it is time for the BPS to call for a fundamental review and reform of professional accountability in the NHS and other public organisations, so that senior managers and directors are mandated to place the safeguarding of individual patients and staff above organisational reputation, and to ensure that government is mandated to act on the recommendations of major public enquiries.

Until we have such mechanisms there will be no sanctions for those who deliberately mislead and conceal.

Graham Russell
Retired Chartered Psychologist