Whistleblower reveals that Kettering Hospital filtered data

In May 2017 the BBC investigated claims that patients were waiting over a year for operations at the Kettering General Hospital after David Phelan, a hospital trust governor, found discrepancies in data whilst working in the trauma and orthopaedics department in 2015.

The NHS Constitution provides patients with maximum waiting times and what these times are depend on the reason for referral.  As an example: non-emergency treatment should start within 18 weeks, demonstrating the huge delays faced by patients at the Kettering Hospital.

Mr Phelan followed whistleblowing procedures, implemented following government consultation after failures in care were identified at the Stafford Hospital in 2009 and Winterbourne View in 2011 and after initial delays this led to an investigation in to the claim.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) inspected the hospital following identification of the data problems. The number of patients found to be waiting for more than 52 weeks increased dramatically from just eight previously declared to 283. Of the 283 patients who waited longer than 52 weeks for their treatment, 138 patients were harmed as a result of the delay and one patient suffered substantial sight loss.

It is believed that the hospital were filtering data by removing people from waiting lists in order to avoid fines imposed by NHS Regulators when patients wait longer for treatment than promised. The hospital is given some allowance in that 92% of patients are meant to begin treatment within 18 weeks but when they do not meet this percentage they are fined up to £400 per patient.

In April 2017 – following an inspection in October 2016 – the Kettering General Hospital was placed into special measures by the CQC. This will ensure additional expert advice will be available to the hospital and that an improvement plan is put into place.

Chief Inspector, Professor Sir Mike Richards, said that the CQC team found the majority of staff to be passionate, caring and hardworking but struggling under pressure. A key concern for the CQC was that risks to patients were not always identified, but when they were, there was a lack of adequate management.

A solicitor in the Medical Negligence team at Ashtons Legal says: “We rely on people such as Mr Phelan to bring such deceit and malpractice to the forefront of policies and to implement change within our NHS. Whistleblowing policies are vital and I am pleased to see that in this instance it has triggered a huge upheaval. I hope that over time the Kettering Hospital will be where it needs to be. Of course part of these problems will be as a result of a lack of funding but transparency is key – the hospital essentially demonstrated that they were coping by almost meeting targets and that is not going to demand the assistance needed to improve matters for the staff or patients”.