Dr Hadiza Bawa-Garba wins appeal against being struck off

MissAdventure I am sorry, and I think in circumstances like yours, one is hyper sensitive to anything that might have saved their life, if it had been done at all, or done better. But it is not a cliche to say we all make mistakes in our work. For most of us, they are irritating/embarrassing/show our incompetence, but do not affect people's lives. For which I, for one, am very grateful.

Yes, I've been a bit touchy lately, I know.
I mean no offence to anyone though.
Its just quite frustrating hearing of people falling through the net because of a things which might have helped.
I wouldn't want to be a doctor, working under less than ideal circumstances.

Thank you MissAdventure, that cannot have been an easy post.
I spent a working lifetime as a nurse, most of it as a senior practitioner. I am married to someone who worked at a senior clinical level in the NHS as well.
We both reflected carefully on 'could have done better', but knew that a time might come when everything went wrong, despite our best efforts. As I type this, I feel the old anxiety creeping into me, and can recall agonisingly some of the moments when the system and I fell short. Never this bad - never even enough to warrant an investigation or complaint, but as someone has bravely said 'there but for the grace of God...'

And the people who tell us to 'work smarter' don't get held to account. The ones who made me most angry were those administrators and managers who would tell us how we should organise our work to be more efficient; but when it came to themselves and their families, they wanted old-fashioned hand-holding by the person they had come to trust, not 'smart working'.

mumofmadboys
As another ex GP I couldn’t agree more.

Thanks Galen.
I am very sorry you have lost your daughter Miss Adventure.

its so sad. The NHS was a brilliant idea but seems to be so under funded and the staff so stressed.

One aspect of this case that particularly concerns me is that this doctor already used her reflective practice journal to good effect and then, after the event, was encouraged, by her senior consultant, to write down every additional thing that she possibly could have done better and this was then used as evidence against her. The inevitable outcome of that one thing will be that reflective practice will become of limited use in the future, because if doctors think what they write will be used in court proceedings against them they will stop using the journals effectively and lo and behold, lessons will not be learnt.
As a social worker I was constantly assessing and re-assessing my decision making and I also used a journal for reflective practice. In a system that was underfunded and over-bureaucratic I always knew that I would carry the can alone if anything went wrong with my cases.

I agree ga. It surprised me that the evidence from Dr Baba-Garba’s log was actually admissible at her trial.
There’s a lot of noise within the NHS about a ‘no-blame’ culture & learning from events, but as soon as anything happens that might be construed as a failure of the system, a scapegoat is quickly found.
And whistleblowers are not just ignored but find their lives are made very difficult.

I know from another case that the NHS is very good at covering things up and passing the buck when it suits them. While they are understaffed and overworked things like this will keep happening.

Very good article by David Aaronovitch in today's Times on this subject: www.thetimes.co.uk/article/making-doctors-scapegoats-won-t-save-lives-6wfttbv0n?shareToken=8e7378f554916f98e08e1857efb8c1e9

He blames inadequate technology and system failures.

Good article - how right he is.

I spent many years of my career working in hospitals and one of the major failings was communication. Sometimes it felt like Chinese whispers when I went on the wards, as I would get different information from different people every time.

In these days of technology he is quite right that an upgrade into the 21st century is required. There is so much brilliant technology for treatments; this needs to move into communication upgrades to help staff on the ground.

I've just come back from the supermarket where I met an old friend. Her DD is a consultant paediatrician in the NHS and.......she has just given in her notice, to work as a part-time locum registrar instead.

I wonder how many other junior doctors, and consultants, will decide it is just not worth the sacrifices they have to make, and the risks to their reputation that they have to take, to uphold the crumbling edifice of the NHS.

met up with many colleagues of OH in the UK recently - so many are leaving, or choose to work part-time only- thus adding even more to the shortage.

Fabulous e-mail sent after our outing by the reception and nursing staff- saying OH was the last of the Old School of 100% NHS dedicated GPs - and that the mould has been truly broken. It was so so lovely and touching, and so sad too.

Fabulous e-mail sent after our outing by the reception and nursing staff- saying OH was the last of the Old School of 100% NHS dedicated GPs - and that the mould has been truly broken. It was so so lovely and touching, and so sad too

That must have been very nice to receive jura2

The same could be said of my lovely dedicated sister-in-law who retired from general practice 4 years ago.

It is worrying when the doctors and nurses quit. How long are we expected to put up with this?