THE Verita report into the tragedy at the hospital nearly three and a half years ago is a comprehensive document that obviously took a lot of hard work to produce.

But it’s not the Word of God. It has its failings and, I’m told, is factually incorrect in some respects. However, even if that were not the case, reports like this should be handled with care.
I should declare an interest.

My wife works at the General Hospital, and so I rarely stray into this area except to object to the long hours and the stress that the job entails. I also have two daughters who are training to be doctors and who want to return to Jersey, so I have more than a passing interest in the standard of health care.

I was, therefore, appalled at how little support the hospital and those who work in it have had, following the publication of the Verita report. I expected a more robust defence of the hospital staff and management along the lines of ‘Yes, the Verita report highlights a number of failings, but we knew about most of them and were working on them, and there are several parts of the report with which we do not agree’.

The four members of Verita may have spent several months on the report, but I know of people who have spent most of their working lives at the hospital and would disagree with quite a lot of what they say.

Of course the investigation process wasn’t helped by the paranoia of a couple of States members, supported by those who jump on any passing bandwagon. They insisted that hospital management had little contact with Verita, even to the point of being forced to have offices outside of the hospital.

This made it impossible for hospital management and Verita to work together to try to get to the truth. This might be a laughable proposition to some States members who don’t trust hospital management to behave in the interests of truth, but that means they don’t trust Verita
either.

A professional firm of consultants is not going to be hoodwinked by management and it’s also difficult to hide anything in such a high profile case.

So you obviously can’t rely on States members to stand up for the staff and management. They are prepared to take at face value anything Verita tells them, while not believing anything hospital management says. It’s a strange world.

One of the few States members who bothered to turn up to a Verita meeting last week summed it all up by saying that the tragic death was ‘an accident waiting to happen’ – another thoughtful analysis.

You also can’t blame the media. Hospital mismanagement is too good a story to be diluted by taking a more objective or questioning approach. That’s particularly so if you’re not presented with an alternative view.

So the report contains a list of recommendations confirming a new Professor Parkinson law: ‘The number of recommendations in a consultant’s report is in direct proportion to the amount of money spent on compiling it’.

After all, the Jersey taxpayer might have felt he was being short-changed if the report had not also included recommendations for changes that have either already been made or were in the process of being made, long before Verita stepped foot on the Island. One recommendation involved a WHO checklist that was only introduced in 2008.

On the other hand, in some respects the report is not comprehensive enough.  For example, Verita didn’t even interview the manager of the department involved in the incident.

Managing a small organisation with a number of people with egos the size of Wiltshire, is also rather different to managing a large, well-resourced department where there is plenty of staff. The personalities might be as important as the processes but Verita remains silent on this.

Which brings me to the nub of the problem – money. In relation to a human tragedy like this, we shouldn’t need to talk about money, but the Verita findings have to be paid for.

By my calculation they made 30 recommendations, although in a separate statement Verita  say they only made 29, so I guess they must know how many recommendations they made. Of those 29 or 30, I calculate that 11 of them will require extra money now, although all of the recommendations would have some impact on resources.

Now the Treasury Minister was very quick to accept the Verita findings, indeed he was so quick that you have to wonder how he had the time to digest such a huge report.

But he didn’t say how he was going to provide the money and we have to wonder where it’s coming from as he recently announced he is looking for £50m in savings from the Comprehensive Spending Review.

I would challenge him to read the Verita report, including the harrowing details of what happened on that day, and tell us where any savings could have been made. Things could definitely have been done differently, and obviously better, but at a lower cost…?

Perhaps we could close a couple of schools to free up some money. All departments, including the Health department, can make savings, but unless their managements have been asleep for several years it’s not going to amount to the tens of millions the Treasury Minister hopes for.

Perhaps he will suggest that public servants in the department should be paid less. Well ,that’s fine for local manual workers, nurses or managers because they’ve got nowhere else to go (although they might disagree). But where will you get the specialist staff from?

The Verita enquiry notes the hospital’s reliance on locum staff. But locums are certainly not employed because it’s easier and cheaper. They are employed to cover for illness or posts that are vacant because current pay and conditions aren’t good enough to attract people from outside. I bet the Treasury Minister didn’t mean paying more when he called for a review of remuneration.

Another issue highlighted by Verita was the pressure the staff were under because it’s a very busy hospital. Managers are well aware of the problems of running a hospital at or near 100% capacity and I can vouch for the stress this causes.

But where is the Fairy Godmother who is going to give them the resources they need to reduce this by just a few percentage points? It wasn’t their job, so Verita certainly didn’t tell us. Their job was to highlight the failings that lead to a tragedy. It’s now up to others to, first of all, decide on which recommendations to accept, and then find the money.

That – and staff who remain dedicated in spite of everything – will keep the health service moving in the right direction.

Peter Body is editor of Business Brief magazine.