Refashion NHS for child’s needs

Your banner headline [‘Children ‘unsafe’ in our hospitals’, Gazette, February 14] must have caused alarm in local families and a feeling of anguish among overworked children’s doctors and nurses in our hospitals .

Yet it was parents and members of the hospital staff who drew the CQC’S attention to the plight of sick children locally. Detailed study of the CQC’S report has more than justified their concerns.

It is shameful that both our two main hospitals have been allowed to become unsafe. Furthermore, among the many issues raised was the assertion that: “Staff do not recognise concerns, incidents or near misses. When concerns were raised, or things went wrong, the approach to reviewing and investigating causes was insufficient or too slow. There was little evidence of learning from events or action taken to improve safety.”

With insufficient staffing, professional burnout in a toxic management environment is inevitable. This immediately leads to unsafe practices, dehumanisation and emotional exhaustion. The CQC stated that “there was not a clear, well understood vision and strategy for the service and that “the services for children and young people were not well led”. In my view this is a terrible indictment of the local NHS management They appear to have abrogated their responsibilities to sick children.

Your paper – ‘our’ Kentish Gazette – has over the years been a great supporter of our local children’s health services.children and their families in east Kent need your continuing support again.

What is needed is a fundamental change in our local children’s health services from the current command and control culture. The local NHS should be refashioned for the needs of each child, their families and the skills of our professional staff in a child-centered integrative model of care. Sick children need 24/7 access to health services within primary care, where 90% of their needs are integrated with hospital care when required. Neither the rigid application of artificial topdown targets nor the engagement of expensive ‘outside’ management consultants will solve our problems in the short or longer term

Child health within the NHS provides opportunities for the most professionally and personally rewarding careers within an integrated system that has a clear shared vision for the health care of children. This will provide children and their families in east Kent better access to paediatric care, better health outcomes and at less cost.