HEALTHCARE DELIVERY


Savile: what have we learned?


KATE WOODHEAD RGN DMS provides an insight into a comprehensive report on the lessons that must be learned from investigations into failures to protect patients and NHS staff.


The appalling abuses undertaken by Jimmy Savile on NHS property have been reported in the press and media over a number of years with the majority of NHS hospital investigations reporting in June 2014 and, most recently, in February 2015. There will be few who have read the individual hospital investigation reports who cannot have been utterly shocked and distressed by the nature of the abuse and the numbers of patients and staff who were victimised. Some 44 separate investigations in 34 NHS hospitals, five mental health units, two children’s hospitals and one ambulance service, one hospice and one children’s convalescent home have been undertaken. Many brave individuals have had to revisit the abuse and some of the reports detail harrowing accounts from victims. Kate Lampard a former barrister,


was asked by the Secretary of State for Health, Jeremy Hunt to provide independent oversight into the NHS and Department of Health investigations. Her remit was to provide assurance that the organisations undertaking investigations took all the necessary steps to establish the truth and followed a robust process aimed at protecting the interests of patients. The report1


makes a series of


recommendations, which are currently being managed by the Trusts concerned.


Lessons learned The report identifies that much of the story of Savile and his associations with NHS Hospitals is unusual to the point of being scarcely credible. It concerns a famous, flamboyantly eccentric, narcissistic and manipulative television personality using his celebrity profile and his much-publicised volunteering and fundraising roles to gain access, influence


APRIL 2015


and power in certain hospitals. He used the opportunities that access, influence and power gave him to commit sexual abuses on a grand scale. However, features of the story have everyday implications and relevance for the NHS today. The recommendations and themes within the report will be examined in some detail. The report suggests that the lessons learned should form part of the wider public conversation about how all professionals and public bodies identify abuse and act to tackle it.


Security and access arrangements Kate Lampard specifies that security arrangements have already changed in hospitals, particularly at Leeds General Infirmary, Stoke Mandeville and Broadmoor in recent years, especially since the introduction of a national strategy for security management in 2003. The report suggests that “Hospitals should try to reduce opportunities for those without legitimate reasons from gaining access to wards and other clinical areas, although total restriction or control of public access across a whole hospital site is neither desirable nor achievable. Hospitals are public buildings and significant employers in their localities. The public regard their local hospital as their ‘facility’ and they have many and varied reasons for wanting access to it.”


It is cited that the Leeds investigation showed that Savile had free access to wards and clinical areas both during the day and at night, over a period of 50 years. The situation at Stoke Mandeville was found to be similar. It was found that many Trusts did not have policies and procedures for high


Kate Woodhead


profile celebrity management and that unsupervised or unaccompanied visits were rare.


Volunteer roles and management Savile’s relationships with Leeds General Infirmary, Stoke Mandeville and Broadmoor hospitals arose out of a number of volunteer roles: he helped with the hospital radio at Leeds General Infirmary, he was a volunteer porter at Leeds General Infirmary and Stoke Mandeville and he supervised entertainments at Broadmoor. In addition, Savile became well known for fundraising for these and other NHS organisations. The Lampard investigation reviewed whether NHS hospitals have appropriate frameworks in place to manage the approximately 78,000 volunteers who work in them currently. Many hospitals have plans to increase the numbers of volunteers, who, it is accepted, have roles which are to befriend, advise and access patients in their beds; as well as a wide variety of other supportive roles away from the clinical areas.


However, it was found that many of the volunteer programmes are relatively unsupervised at a senior level and do not have the support and resources they may need. Kate Lampard recommends that all hospitals appoint a voluntary services


THE CLINICAL SERVICES JOURNAL 17


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