NHS secrecy: looking after their own.

North Staffordshire NHS Trust is threatening to sue John Hemming, MP, for the cost of consulting lawyers over the David Southall Special Case files, which they are reluctant to release.

Mr Hemming is quoted in the Birmingham Post as saying:

"I have been writing to the hospital asking them to tell patients when there is a secret medical file. The hospital's response has been to pass the issue to their lawyers.

"Their lawyers have now threatened to sue me for the cost of the legal advice. This is complete nonsense. The hospital should obey the law. If they don't know what the law is then they should not try to get me to pay the legal costs of them finding out."

It is an old trick. Threaten legal action and then refuse to comment other than to say, as North Staffs NHS Trust did, "Our solicitors are dealing with this and it would be quite inappropriate to comment."

So, not content with killing people, the NHS now wants to do it in secret.

More from John Hemming's Weblog.

Update 29.12.06 @ 20:00
For some Friday evening surrealism, see the link to John Hemming's weblog (under 29th December). The Trust now says it is not going to sue the MP but, as far as I can make out, will only talk to him via their lawyers and will charge him for the lawyers' time, so that the money can be spent on officials' expense accounts patient care. Mr Hemming concludes,

So the response from the hospital is that they don't want to talk to me directly, but only through the lawyers and they want to charge me for the time spent by the lawyers on talking to me. I am not quite sure what planet this organisation is on.

Which planet? First identify your galaxy.

Tags: Child Protection, John Hemming, North Staffordshire NHS.