New investigation into failings at Liverpool Community Health

A new independent investigation into the serious incidents at Liverpool Community Health NHS Trust between 2010 and 2014 will review fresh evidence.

The investigation will draw upon new evidence identified by Mersey Care following the Kirkup report in 2018. The investigation will engage with families of former patients and affected staff to understand their concerns and develop recommendations.

The investigation will identify individual serious patient safety incidents that were not reported or adequately investigated by Liverpool Community Health and also undertake a series of historical mortality reviews.

The panel will advise where they believe senior leadership within the trust may have contributed to the delivery of unsafe patient care, identifying any themes, trends or issues that may require further investigation.

NHS England and NHS Improvement will establish the investigation. It will be chaired by Dr Bill Kirkup and supported by an independent expert oversight panel.

Work is expected to start immediately and the independent investigation will report by the end of 2020.

A previous review into Liverpool Community Health was conducted by Dr Kirkup to look at widespread failings at the trust. The report was published in February 2018.

It described how over-ambitious cost improvement programmes as part of a bid for foundation trust status placed patient safety at risk, leading to serious lapses in care and widespread harm to patients. It concluded that a culture of bullying meant that staff were afraid to speak up and safety incidents were ignored or went unrecognised.

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This story was first published in digitalhealth.net

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