HC Deb 22 April 1966 vol 727 cc316-26

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Howie.]

3.56 p.m.

Mr. Dennis Hobden (Brighton, Kemptown)

I rise to raise the question of the Bevendean Hospital, Brighton, and to deal with the death of one of the patients there who happened to be a constituent of mine.

The facts are that in December, 1965, I received a letter from the parents of that constituent drawing attention to the circumstances of the death of their son in the hospital. As is usual in these cases, and in view of the allegations, I got in touch with the Minister, asking for more information on the case. That was on 7th December, 1965. On 22nd December, I received from my right hon. Friend the Minister a reply stating that he regretted the delay in his reply and pointing out that he was satisfied that there was nothing more the hospital could have done to save the boy's life.

That may or may not have been the case, but one thing is certain, that as the Member for the constituency in which the hospital is situated, and as the Member for the constituency in which the complainant resided, it seemed to me that the Minister did not see fit to answer the detailed allegations made by the complainant. In a letter of 2nd February I complained to my right hon. Friend that no detailed rebuttal had been made, and I asked how I was supposed to know whether the Shorten's allegations were not correct. Shortens is the name of the family. I asked how I was supposed to know whether the allegations were correct if I was not given the information for which I asked, and I added that I did not intend to leave the matter there.

It was not until 11th February that I received a copy of a letter which had been sent to Mr. and Mrs. Shorten which in some way went to meet my criticisms, but all the criticisms were not answered in that letter from my right hon. Friend. The remark is made that: my Department represent the facts of the matter as they have been reported to me, and I do not feel that I can helpfully add to them. My concern is that while those remarks may have been reported to the Minister by the staff concerned that does not necessarily mean that those facts are correct. This is what I am concerned about, because it would not be the first time in history that people in high positions have been misled by others beneath them.

I want to ask some pertinent questions which have not been answered and which, I think, are due to be answered at some stage by public inquiry. For instance, is it true that the Shortens were informed by telephone 48 hours after their son had been admitted to the hospital by a member of the hospital staff that: He is all right. It is you who upset him"? If so, that is a monstrous thing to say to parents worried on their son's behalf. Is it also true that Michael Shorten, the deceased, was told that there was nothing wrong with him, even though he himself stated on many occasions that he felt ill?

It being Four o'clock, the Motion for the adjournment of the House lapsed, without Quesion put.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Howie.]

Mr. Hobden

Is it true that Michael Shorten was told that there was nothing wrong with him, even though he stated to his parents and the staff that he felt very ill? Is it true that, during his stay as the hospital, his requests for certain drugs were ignored when these were the only drugs which gave him relief and that, instead, he was given doses of linctus?

Why is it that my right hon. Friend appears satisfied that Mr. Shorten, jnr., was not asked by a member of the hospital staff to move another patient? Why should a young man within hours of death relate an incident of that kind to his parents if it was untrue? Why was it that, during the visiting period on 26th May when Mr. Shorten, jnr., was in acute pain and coughing distressingly, two members of the staff ignored his condition, and also, that same evening, when Mr. Shorten, snr., went to see a nurse in the office to ask for help for his son, at the request of his son, why was the door shut in his face and constant knocking brought no response?

Is it true that at 10 p.m. that evening, as Mr. Shorten, jnr., was lying on his deathbed, his parents witnessed a frantic search by members of the staff for the necessary apparatus to drain the mucus from his chest, and heard them state, "There is never anything for use in this place"? Is it also true that artificial respiration should have been given by means of a respirator and a cuffed endotracheal tube much earlier? Had the hospital the equipment at the time of Shorten's death? When some apparatus was finally found, is it a fact that the electric plug was a different size from the socket over the patient's bed? Was he denied hot milk because, in the words of the staff, he was "not ill enough"?

In any case, should there not have been some form of emergency warning system so that members of the staff could be called by patients instead of relying on other sick and enfeebled patients in the ward to draw the attention of the staff to the condition of patients?

All these questions need to be answered, for thus far they have been ignored and, as the responsible Member, I want a straight answer; otherwise, I cannot do my job. This is a public matter, and the public cannot have their fears allayed unless they are answered.

If this had been an isolated incident, I would perhaps have been forgiven for believing that it was a case of the worry of overanxious parents. But I must say that long before I ever became a Member of the House I had heard from friends, including two responsible local Brighton councillors who had been patients in Bevendean Hospital, that the hospital left a lot to be desired. The complaint of Mr. and Mrs. Shorten, the parents of the deceased, confirmed other people's complaints.

However, I must confess that I was not prepared for what eventually followed. Following publicity in the local Press and on television, I was deluged with letters from former patients and relatives. Quite frankly, those letters appalled me, and in due course I will pass them on to the Minister to examine the allegations made in them. I trust in the future that such allegations will be dealt with with less complacency than the allegations made by the Shorten family.

In one of those letters, it is related that a man took his own life in Ward 7. Another man lay dying on a Saturday night when there was hardly any staff on duty, and his wife had to demand that he be put into an oxygen tent. Patients are still being transported via external fire escapes and stairs in all kinds of weather, because there is no lift.

In another case I am informed that patients required oxygen, but owing to the shortage of staff had to use it themselves, that is if they could reach it. Another complaint was that the same trolleys were used for the service of food as for the equipment used for the rubbing of patients' backs. Other complaints have been made, but in my opinion many of them are too awful to be made public. Enough public concern has already been aroused by this case. I believe that the people who made these allegations to me are responsible people.

There have also been complaints of injuries received through neglect, and I propose to quote from a few of the letters which I have received. One writer says: The lack of nurses can be very frightening to chest patients. Several times my father needed oxygen, and though it was later left by his bed he was unable to reach it properly. Another patient got it for him. Another woman, speaking about her husband, said: He was quite his old self again but when I arrived the next time he came from his chair to the bed, trembling all over, and said, 'Take me out of this awful place or they will kill me'. He then said, 'I have found out something and have told them what I thought of them all'. A few days later his wife was shocked to see him. She said that his nose looked as though it was broken and his jaw had been hit. A complaint to a member of the staff brought forth the comment Yes, we have given him the wrong treatment, but we will not do that again. In another case a woman writes: I heard a woman told by a doctor that she was going to die. The woman retorted, 'You are joking'. The doctor replied, 'Oh, no. I am perfectly serious', and these remarks were heard by a number of other patients. Another writer says: One of the patients fell out of bed and lay moaning on the floor for ages. I called out several times. A nurse eventually arrived and told me to shut up. The next morning the night sister, after being told what had happened, instructed me to say nothing as it had got nothing to do with me. She subsequently saw the patient's name in the obituary column of the local newspaper.

Another writer says: I was a patient there in August, 1964, and, believe me, I was grateful to get home again. I saw some happenings which were more than appalling. Another complaint, to which I have referred already, was: My father was taken there. It was a bitterly cold day, and sleeting hard. He was strapped on a stretcher and taken to the ward by an outside fire escape. He had to be tilted to an extreme angle as the fire escape was steep. It was as much as the ambulance men could manage. My stepmother and I stood and watched. We were almost glued to the spot with fear, for if one of these men had stumbled they would all have fallen. Clearly, something is wrong with Bevendean Hospital. I have found it difficult to raise this case because of concern for many hard-working members of the nursing staff, and I am not criticising them, but it cannot be denied that I have been informed by members of the nursing profession at Bevendean Hospital, and also by doctors in Brighton, that something is wrong at this hospital. Why else should they be under orders to keep quiet and not discuss matters concerning the hospital?

It may be, as I have said, that staff shortages have placed a heavy burden on other members of the staff. It would be interesting to know how many fully qualified staff are employed at this hospital, and what is the proportion of auxiliary staff, unqualified, but performing nursing or quasi-nursing duties.

In reply to a Question during the last Session my right hon. Friend said that one ward had been closed because of staff shortages. I have not publicised the more horrifying allegations which have been made about this hospital, but I want to know the truth. I am entitled to know the truth, and I intend to get it. In my opinion the only way to get it is by holding a public inquiry, and I urge my right hon. Friend today to concede the need for it. Let the allegations be answered, otherwise public concern will continue. The position is too serious to be ignored further. My constituents are concerned and want an answer.

The staff of the hospital is entitled to have the position cleared up if these allegations should prove baseless, but we must all know the truth. My opinion is that the regional hospital board is far too remote to get at the facts of the situation, and that only by a public inquiry can we do so. I urge this inquiry upon my right hon. Friend.

4.10 p.m.

The Minister of Health (Mr. Kenneth Robinson)

I am well aware of the concern of my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Mr. Hobden) with the health services in Brighton. As the House knows, I am always appreciative when hon. Members concern themselves with hospital and medical affairs in their constituencies and bring to my notice matters which they consider need putting right. I therefore welcome my hon. Friend's interest in the problems relating to hospital provision in Brighton generally, to which I know that the South-East Metropolitan Regional Hospital Board has given and is giving a great deal of consideration.

My hon. Friend has drawn the attention of the House to the case of a patient, Mr. John Shorten—a young man of 32 who had suffered for many years from asthma and who died in Bevendean Hospital on 26th May, 1965. As my hon. Friend will recall from my letters to him, I looked very carefully into the facts of this case, but could find no evidence of any neglect on the part of the hospital doctors or nurses, who, indeed, appeared to have done all that was medically possible for this unfortunate young man.

This patient had been in hospital before with this complaint. His parents, Mr. and Mrs. Shorten, have my sincere sympathy in their very sad loss. Unhappily, asthma is responsible for about 3,000 deaths a year in this country, most such deaths being of young people. Death may come to them extremely suddenly. These cases are very distressing. They are very difficult to treat, especially as any emotional disturbance may set off an attack, and as the condition progresses the intensity of the asthmatic reaction jeopardises the patient's life.

My hon. Friend referred to the time taken to deal with these complaints. In the first instance, Mr. and Mrs. Shorten asked solicitors to approach the hospital management committee, which made detailed inquiries into specific allegations. It was only in October last that Mr. Shorten wrote to me. The inquiries we made took a considerable time to complete, as the regional hospital board, at our request, took up a number of points with the management committee and satisfied itself on them before it was in a position to reply.

My hon. Friend wrote to me on 7th December, and I naturally looked at the case most carefully in the light of representations made to me before I replied to him, just over a fortnight later, on 22nd December. My Department wrote to Mr. Shorten on 29th December.

Almost a year has elapsed since this unfortunate young man's death before my hon. Friend has had occasion to raise the matter here, but I stress that prompt inquiries were made, at the time of the original complaint, by the hospital management committee, which is responsible, and statements were made by the staff concerned while events were still reasonably fresh in everyone's mind. I appreciate the importance of prompt investigation of complaints, and I have stressed this in fresh guidance which I issued to hospital authorities only in March of this year. In general, I believe that hospital authorities realise the importance of ensuring that all complaints on behalf of patients are sympathetically received and fairly and speedily dealt with.

My hon. Friend says that no attempt has been made to answer Mr. and Mrs. Shorten's complaints. I cannot accept that. These were first put to the hospital management committee by Mr. Shorten's solicitors, and they received detailed replies. Mr. Shorten was not satisfied with these replies and wrote to me, making four main comments, to which my Department replied, again after making inquiries of the regional hospital board, which, in turn, took the matter up with the management committee. I myself investigated the details of this case very thoroughly, as is my practice when serious allegations of this kind are made. I came, however, to the conclusion that a special inquiry was not called for.

As sometimes happens in the case of asthma, I am told, this young man appeared to be well earlier in the day, but towards the evening his condition took a sudden turn for the worse. The hospital doctors promptly gave him emergency treatment by injections and followed this by a hydrocortisone drip and by helium inhalation. Unfortunately, however, it was not possible to save his life.

My hon. Friend has today made certain broad allegations and some specific allegations about the conditions existing at Bevendean Hospital. As he will recall, when he wrote to me fairly recently about this hospital I asked him to let me have details of anything in the hospital which he considered required attention. He did not trouble to let me have that information, so I have naturally assumed until now that he was satisfied that the information on which he based his somewhat generalised allegations was without foundation. However, he now tells the House that he has been deluged with letters sent in to him resulting or arising out of the Press publicity attaching to the Shorten case. I was a little surprised to hear my hon. Friend say that he would send these on to me in due course, and he asked me to give him an assurance that I would not regard these allegations with complacency. I never regard allegations of negligent treatment in hospital with complacency. I can assure the House that I and my Department take all these complaints very seriously indeed and go to great lengths to ensure a thorough investigation.

I deeply regret that my hon. Friend has chosen to read out detailed allegations contained in letters from unnamed correspondents about unidentifiable cases in this hospital for the first time in the House of Commons when he has apparently had these letters for a long time and could, and I venture to suggest should, have forwarded them on to me for investigation. He was, as is quite customary in the case of Adjournment debates, invited on my behalf to let me know any specific matters he wanted to raise in this debate, so that I could be prepared with detailed replies. Naturally it is impossible in the few minutes at my disposal to deal with a whole stream of allegations which I have heard for the first time only this afternoon; but I can assure my hon. Friend that, if he will send his deluge of letters to me, they will all be very carefully investigated.

I am always ready to look into specific complaints about hospitals and I have no wish, I can assure the House, to see legitimate criticism stifled in any way, but I am sure that my hon. Friend will appreciate that generalised, unsubstantiated allegations publicly ventilated about a named hospital are seldom very helpful and almost certainly do damage—damage to public confidence in the hospital, damage to the morale, both of the staff and of the patients, and damage to the recruitment of staff.

My hon. Friend mentioned a staff shortage. I will say a word about that in a minute or so, but I do not know whether he imagines that the kind of speech he made this afternoon is likely to be particularly helpful to the recruitment of nursing staff for Bevendean Hospital.

The population of Brighton and the surrounding district is now about 290,000. This population is well served by the Brighton and Lewes Group of hospitals, which includes the Brighton General, the Royal Sussex County, the Bevendean, and 10 other hospitals. In all they provide over 1,600 hospitals beds for that population. In co-operation with the Regional Board and the other authorities, I and my Department have considered the needs of this area in order to complete my review of the hospital plan. The emphasis on hospital building in Brighton, as suggested to me by the Regional Hospital Board, should be on providing a new accident centre, further operating theatres and additional beds at the Royal Sussex County Hospital. I am in agreement with this proposal. This development of the Royal Sussex County Hospital will cost over one and a half million pounds and will start next year. It will put at the command of the Brighton Hospitals generally greatly increased facilities which could be more quickly provided in this way than in any other.

Bevendean Hospital will continue to provide beds for patients suffering from chest complaints. The main structure of the hospital is fairly old, but it has already been extensively upgraded. Further improvements and extensions to the hospital are soon to be carried out at a cost of over £23,000. This hospital is well laid out and fully worthy of the improvements which have been and are to be made. Bevendean Hospital has 144 beds in use. One ward of 21 beds, as my hon. Friend mentioned, is closed. This is partly due to a minor shortage of nursing staff, though the hospital as a whole is only just short of its nursing establishment.

The closure of the ward is also due to the absence of any great pressure of patients for the beds to be opened. Although the hospital is, of course, always busy, it is not at present so busy that the beds need to be brought into use. If the position remains as at present, I understand that the Regional Board will consider using this ward and the 21 beds for some other purpose. Certainly, they have not been forgotten.

I should like to emphasise the high reputation which, contrary to what my hon. Friend has insinuated this afternoon, Bevendean has always maintained. During my period of office, up to today, the only criticism which has been brought to my attention is the single case about which my hon. Friend has written to me and about which he has spoken this afternoon. As to that case, I am satisfied, as I have said, that everything possible was done for this young man.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-two minutes past Four o'clock.