GSD Says Chief Minister “Misleads Parliament” On Professor Burke Allegations
The GSD says that the Chief Minister “seriously misled Parliament and the people of Gibraltar” when he said that there was “no shred of evidence” of preventable deaths or harm to patients handed to him by Professor Burke. The party says that this much “is clear” from communications sent by Professor Burke to doctors.
A statement continued: “Far from the Chief Minister not having been presented with a “shred” of evidence it is clear that papers were provided to him by Professor Burke and offers of further presentations made which should have caused further enquiries and an independent investigation to be set up. Additionally, the Government should have set up an immediate clinical governance review to introduce improvements that would tackle the root of the issues Professor Burke was highlighting.
“Professor Burke had raised allegations of preventable deaths and harm to patients caused by clinical governance deficiencies in GHA. He had also highlighted what he called the “unresolved patient safety issues” and the control of a cabal of individuals which was worsening the situation. He also said to the Chief Minister in May 2020 that “patients are dying unnecessarily and suffering avoidable harm at the GHA” because of a number of deficiencies in care and administration of records.
“Additionally he gave the Chief Minister a Report of 20 anonymised individual cases of preventable harm and deaths where there had been alleged misdiagnosis or delayed diagnosis which had caused or potentially caused the patient harm.
“The chronology is damning and demonstrates that the Chief Minister misrepresented what had actually happened when he spoke in Parliament in May this year and said that “there is not one shred of evidence that there is anything behind those allegations.” The papers sent to doctors show that Professor Burke has been warning about patient harm for 2 years.
“On 24 November 2019 Professor Burke sent a Report containing an anonymised list of 20 sample cases to the Minister for Health at the time.
“On 20 January 2020 he sent the same Report and list of cases to the Chief Minister.
“On 13 February 2020 there was a meeting with the Chief Minister and at least four other Ministers. At that meeting Professor Burke discussed his findings and went through the list of cases in detail. These cases were only a sample kicked up by an audit of some patient records. He expressed concern about the “...thousands of sheets of patient records...in storage and unfiled” which, in his view, posed a risk to patient safety if papers were not filed or went astray.
“On the same day he offered to give a 45-minute presentation to the Chief Minister and Ministers on patient safety and preventable harm in hospital. According to Professor Burke this offer has not been taken up.
“After that meeting and at the suggestion of the Chief Minister, Professor Burke met with the Coroner even though he had advised the Chief Minister [and then the Coroner] that the issues he had discovered resulting in patient harm were not for the Coroner as they related to systems or organisational issues for GHA to resolve.
“On 4 May 2020 he submitted a strategy to the Chief Minister to address these issues. The strategy was prepared at the Chief Minister’s request.”
The Leader of the Opposition, Keith Azopardi said: “That chronology suggests there is plenty to investigate and is far from the situation described by the Chief Minister in Parliament. The anonymised list of cases show a summary of the condition, the possible diagnosis/misdiagnosis, delayed diagnosis, the consequence for the patient and the link to possible harm or accelerated death. This was a sample only and suggested a wider and systemic issue in the care of patients worthy of investigation to see if improvements could be made and to see whether the conclusions of the sample were justified. Instead Mr Picardo has trashed Professor Burke effectively as a charlatan who has presented no evidence. This is far from the truth and is a serious misrepresentation of what has been happening.”
Shadow Health Minister, Elliott Phillips said: “It is a scandalous state of affairs for the Chief Minister to behave in this way and deeply irresponsible of his role. The proper course would have been to investigate this fully and ask independent external clinicians or the Care Quality Commission to do so.
“Professor Burke was hired by the GSLP Government to head up the Clinical Governance area in 2018. His complaints should be taken seriously rather than wiped away as a political inconvenience that the Chief Minister prefers not to hear.”
Mr Phillips added: “The Government needs to concentrate on the serious issues raised by Professor Burke rather than try to dismiss what he has been saying as nonsense. He raises very important issues central to the health of patients. They deserve an independent clinical investigation and the GSD in Government will commit to do that. We won’t brush things under the carpet. We have been calling for an independent investigation for some time and this latest turn of events as well as the allegations raised justify holding one. This cannot be left as it is.”
