999 control centre staff left suicidal by climate of fear
Bosses ordered emergency calls to be blocked to protect trust from unfolding scandal over response times
THE conclusions are damning. A “climate of fear” instilled by managers of a 999 control room centre left staff so frightened they were unable to concentrate even on emergency calls.
The independent investigation was opened after staff warned NHS trust executives they were victims of “severe bullying, coercion and intimidation”.
At least two attempted suicides were reported to investigators.
The evidence “strongly suggests” that the alleged bullying emanated from the centre’s senior operations manager, Dave Hawkins, the report concluded. Yet Mr Hawkins continued to work at the trust – and remains there now.
It was, some said, as though he was “untouchable”. Staff did not know that Mr Hawkins had just played a critical role – behind the scenes – attempting to protect the trust’s executives from an unfolding scandal.
Today The Daily Telegraph reveals the part he played in trying to cover up a rogue operation, which deliberately delayed responses to thousands of calls, many of them life-threatening.
Back in April 2015, an independent investigation into Coxheath Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) in Kent heard that abuse in the control room was so great that it left them struggling to make life-or-death decisions about 999 calls.
“Sometimes it was so pressurised and the staff felt so unsupported by the team leaders that they could not concentrate on their emergency calls,” the report states. Several said the attempt- ed suicide of one call handler had been the final spur for action.
The inquiry found out that the call handler, then 37, was one of two staff members who attempted to take their life in despair at the abuse they suffered.
A third had considered crashing her car rather than face another day of attacks at the Coxheath centre, investigators found.
Staff at South East Coast Ambulance trust said they felt like victims of “psychological games”, with shouting and swearing, name-calling and anonymous phone calls employed as weapons.
“From the interviews, it was reported that there was a universal dread of the atmosphere in the EOC and staff reported feeling ‘sick’, having ‘anxiety attacks’ and wanting to ‘turn back’ rather than come into work for their shift,” the investigation report states.
“One witness said that she had thought of crashing her car in order to avoid coming into work as her fear of being bullied was so great.” The inquiry was ordered by the trust’s director of workforce transformation after six members of staff raised concerns after an ambulance dispatcher attempted suicide.
Formal disciplinary proceedings should be answered by Mr Hawkins, it said. Yet the manager was suspended for a matter of just days, before simply being shifted to other duties.
Staff who had spoken up said they were devastated, writing to the trust’s chief executive Paul Sutton and other officials, asking why Mr Hawkins had been left “swanning around” as though nothing had happened.
Union officials questioned how Mr Hawkins had become “untouchable”.
They didn’t know that the trust was heading towards a major 111 scandal.
Nor did they know that Mr Hawkins had played a crucial role in attempting to protect the trust’s senior officials, by covering up how the secret operation came about.
The rogue protocols saw patients with life-threatening conditions forced to wait twice as long for an ambulance if their call came via the 111 helpline.
The practice – introduced on the personal orders of Mr Sutton – saw up to 20,000 calls subject to deliberate delays, using practices which improved the trust’s apparent performance against NHS response targets.
It was abandoned in February 2015, when a whistleblower alerted local NHS organisations about the practices, which had been linked to a number of deaths.
In the weeks that followed, the trust’s risk management and clinical governance committee wanted to know how the practices had come about.
A paper was drawn up by a senior operations manager – now known to be Mr Hawkins – which “misled” the committee, an investigation into the scandal said. This provided the committee with a string of “erroneous” facts, suggesting that local commissioners had been given information they had not, overstating the involvement of the trust’s medical director and removing references to concerns raised by clinical staff.
It was not until May last year that Mr Sutton resigned.
Unpublished documents also reveal that an investigation had upheld claims of bullying right at the top of the organisation.