AN INDEPENDENT review has criticised a culture of "bullying and harassment" at hospitals where A&E waiting times were under-reported.
The report into NHS Lothian carried out by senior clinicians said they had heard of "several examples" where staff in emergency departments came under pressure to fudge waiting times performance by "[prioritising] patients about to breach the four hour standard rather than a patient with a greater clinical priority".
Read more: More heads roll in Sturgeon's cabinet reshuffle
The report added that "several examples were cited where staff felt they were asked to take actions that they felt were not right for patients but often felt unable to challenge this for fear of the consequences or their concerns were dismissed".
The A&E target is for 95 per cent of patients to be seen, treated and either admitted or discharged within four hours.
The Scottish Academy of Medical Royal Colleges carried out the review after a whistleblower at St John's hospital in Livingston raised concerns in October about doctoring of patients' waiting times to meet the four-hour target to process A&E patients.
It emerged in December that emergency waiting times at every acute hospital run by NHS Lothian had been under-reported.
Read more: NHS Scotland must aim higher than 'very low bar' of being better than England
Professor Derek Bell, chair of the Scottish Academy, was commissioned by the Scottish Government to conduct an external review into the allegations made by the whistleblower.
The review stated: "There is clear evidence that breach recording was not in line with expected practice since 2012 and puts the validity of unscheduled care data into question for several years.
"There was no evidence that staff amended breach times to deliberately falsify performance. However, we felt that there is a fine line between falsification and confusion, when pressure is applied to 'meet' the four hour standard."
Reviewers said the "apparent lack of a clear and robust governance structure" had "contributed significantly" to this.
Investigators found some staff felt "admonished and blamed" rather than supported when raising concerns and disputed the findings of NHS Lothian's own internal probe, which claimed there was no evidence bullying and harassment.
Read more: NHS Lothian threatens legal action over troubled Sick Kids hospital
The review stated: "We observed some inappropriate behaviour with several examples that were consistent with bullying and harassment."
NHS Lothian has accepted all of the recommendations.
Jim Crombie, NHS Lothian interim chief executive, said: "We have recognised from the outset that mistakes were made and accept the findings of this review.
"It's clear not all was as it should have been. Staff have also come under intense pressure and for these failings I'm really sorry.
"Since the publication of our own review last November we have already taken a number of steps to rectify the reporting errors including significant staff training to ensure correct recording of four-hour breaches."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel