Shipman would have avoided trial here, says Scots patient safety group

PROSECUTORS in Scotland “do not have a clue how to deal with suspicious deaths in healthcare”, campaigners have warned after the Crown Office ruled out investigations into more than 40 avoidable patient deaths and injuries in Ayrshire.

They likened the decision to the failure to properly probe Gosport Memorial Hospital where 456 elderly patients died after being prescribed dangerous doses of painkiller, and warned that serial killing GP Harold Shipman “would be safe from detection here”.

Campaign group Action for Safe and Accountable People’s NHS (ASAP-NHS) has been pushing since 2015 for NHS Ayrshire and Arran to be prosecuted under health and safety law over dozens of patient deaths exposed by whistleblower and ASAPNHS member Rab Wilson, a former psychiatric nurse at the health board.

Since then ASAP-NHS, led by retired Health and Safety Executive inspector Roger Livermore, has obtained 86 serious incident (SAER) reports covering a two-year period in Ayrshire and Arran. They include at least 46 fatalities where the failures reported are believed to have contributed to the individuals’ deaths.

In a letter to First Minister Nicola Sturgeon on behalf of ASAP-NHS, Mr Livermore said: “For the Lord Advocates to take no enforcement action on the systematic failings behind the 40 deaths is a repeat of the errors of the initial investigations into the Gosport Memorial Hospital deaths scandal.

“The law officers repeatedly demonstrate that they do not have a clue as to how to deal with suspicious deaths in healthcare.

“It is as if Dr Shipman would be safe from detection here.”

The dossier includes cases where a patient died after missing 27 doses of medication over nine days; a cancer patient whose tumour was overlooked in a CT scan and only identified seven months later when the disease was terminal; and a psychiatric patient admitted to hospital after a suicide attempt who was left in a room with “selfharm items”. In many of the cases, staff shortages or inadequate training, communication breakdowns and poor record-keeping were blamed.

Only one case – where a patient killed themselves in an understaffed psychiatric facility – led to a prosecution. The health board was subsequently convicted of criminal breaches of health and safety.

Mr Livermore, from Bathgate, West Lothian, said prosecution “seems only to have come about because the parents of the deceased repeatedly pressed the [Crown Office] for action”.

A spokesman for the Crown Office said the cases had been previously considered by its specialist Health and Safety Division and no criminal proceedings were raised “on the basis of the available evidence at that time”. He added: “Following review by a senior prosecutor ... the Crown has concluded there are no further investigations which should be instructed.”

Professor Hazel Borland, nurse director of the NHS Ayrshire & Arran said it would be “inappropriate to comment” on Crown Office matters.

A Scottish Government spokesman said it is not involved “in the investigation and prosecution of alleged criminal activity”, adding: “Safety for patients is our top priority and The Scottish Patient Safety Programme has led to unprecedented improvements in quality across the NHS.”

To take no action on systematic failings is to repeat errors behind 40 deaths at Gosport