DO NO HARM
UNLESS THE PATIENT IS IN ENGLAND
Do No Harm' - the words that Dr Ubani did not adhere to when on his first out-of-hours GP cover in England. By his own admission Dr Ubani, who had only arrived in England the day before the death of David Gray, has admitted that fatigue led to Mr Grays death. In 2008 Dr Ubani had given 70-year-old David Gray 20 times the recommended amount of diamorphine to treat pain in his kidneys. Dr Ubani had been given an induction pack containing advice that it would almost never be appropriate to give doses of diamorphine higher than 30mg. An expert in out-of-hours services, Dr Mark Reynolds, told the inquest into David Grays death “I believe this tragedy was ultimately caused by the differences in training and experience of Dr Ubani to that of Doctors in England”. It seems Dr Ubani never bothered to consult his induction pack. A top-level report claims NHS trusts in England have been failing to carry out proper checks on GPs brought in to provide out-of-hours cover
The top level report also stated that there are many challenges faced by foreign doctors who fly in to do night and weekend cover, such as seeing patients they are not familiar with or proper access to their medical records, and that doctors from within the EU are not having their clinical skills or their competence in English assessed because of EU laws. Meanwhile doctors from outside the EU have to sit an exam set by the General Medical Council
There are unacceptable variations in the standard of out-of-hours care offered by Primary Care Trusts (PCT's) around England who are responsible for the services. PCT's buy in the services from private firms, GP co-operatives and in-house teams. Most of these providers do not assess the clinical skills of the staff they employ. The majority had a very lazy approach when assessing clinical staff. They did not use clinical scenarios when interviewing foreign doctors some didn’t even request references or if they did any that were not returned were not pursued for a reason why.
Doctor Ellie Cannon works for a English inner-city out-of-hours co-operative personally welcomed the scrutiny that is now been given to the out-of-hours service in England since the tragic death of David Gray. Dr Cannon said that compassion and sense had been replaced with performance and targets and meeting those targets are one of the reasons why people in England have to put up with being treated by foreign doctors at night and weekends. The new GP contract brought in by the British government for GP's in England is a target driven contract. Shifts are paid by the hour, calls must be answered within a certain time frame and most worrying of all, doctors have a number of visits they have to undertake in a six hour shift. Each shift is not measured by quality but quantity and they have to prove they are performing well or the PCT contracts are taken away, so they have to fill all out-of-hour shifts. This means getting doctors from outside England, even if it means getting doctors who find English difficult to speak let alone understand, even if it means losing a patient along the way, not to worry it’s only the people in England who are suffering under this system and to a British government the people of England don’t matter at all.
The top level report also stated that there are many challenges faced by foreign doctors who fly in to do night and weekend cover, such as seeing patients they are not familiar with or proper access to their medical records, and that doctors from within the EU are not having their clinical skills or their competence in English assessed because of EU laws. Meanwhile doctors from outside the EU have to sit an exam set by the General Medical Council
There are unacceptable variations in the standard of out-of-hours care offered by Primary Care Trusts (PCT's) around England who are responsible for the services. PCT's buy in the services from private firms, GP co-operatives and in-house teams. Most of these providers do not assess the clinical skills of the staff they employ. The majority had a very lazy approach when assessing clinical staff. They did not use clinical scenarios when interviewing foreign doctors some didn’t even request references or if they did any that were not returned were not pursued for a reason why.
Doctor Ellie Cannon works for a English inner-city out-of-hours co-operative personally welcomed the scrutiny that is now been given to the out-of-hours service in England since the tragic death of David Gray. Dr Cannon said that compassion and sense had been replaced with performance and targets and meeting those targets are one of the reasons why people in England have to put up with being treated by foreign doctors at night and weekends. The new GP contract brought in by the British government for GP's in England is a target driven contract. Shifts are paid by the hour, calls must be answered within a certain time frame and most worrying of all, doctors have a number of visits they have to undertake in a six hour shift. Each shift is not measured by quality but quantity and they have to prove they are performing well or the PCT contracts are taken away, so they have to fill all out-of-hour shifts. This means getting doctors from outside England, even if it means getting doctors who find English difficult to speak let alone understand, even if it means losing a patient along the way, not to worry it’s only the people in England who are suffering under this system and to a British government the people of England don’t matter at all.