NHS incident reports must be made available to staff

NHS Ayrshire and Arran have withheld reports on more than 50 serious incidents at its hospitals and clinics. The reports are meant to establish exactly what went wrong and what lessons could be learned to ensure the mistakes do not happen again.

A nurse employed by NHS Ayrshire and Arran eventually had to make an FOI request followed by an unprecedented appeal to the information commissioner, to release a report of an incident in which he was involved.

Scottish Conservative Health Spokesman, Jackson Carlaw MSP said:

"It is astonishing that NHS Ayrshire and Arran refused to release these critical reports. These reports sought to establish what mistakes were made and to break down the chain of events that led to them. When incidents result in the death of patients, it is imperative that we do all we can to prevent similar tragedies in the future and to analyse exactly what went wrong.

"Surely it is ludicrous that one of Ayrshire and Arran's own nursing staff had to put in an FOI request to release this information, only to then appeal to the information commissioner to intervene. Every one of the more than 50 reports that were compiled should have should have been made available to all staff as soon as the report was available.

"We cannot expect NHS staff to act differently in the future if we do not allow them to understand what went wrong. NHS North Ayrshire and Arran now has to act to restore public confidence. Their complacent response so far falls far short of what is required."

Local MSP for Ayr, John Scott said:

"I am greatly concerned about the management failure of NHS Ayrshire and Arran highlighted in the Freedom of Information Commissioner's report.

"The fifty cases referred to where action plans created following critical incidents that have not been followed up represent a management failure of the greatest significance. More importantly, the opportunity to act on and improve the level of service to the public, may have been lost as mistakes may have not been learned from because these action plans have not been made available to relevant staff.

"That is why I am now calling for a full inquiry in the light of Kevin Dunion's report into the governance and management structures of NHS Ayrshire and Arran, with particular reference to record keeping, information dissemination and the following up and learning from critical mistakes made in the past."

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