Monday’s must read health policy developments and debate

HSJ calls for PHSO leadership to resign

Last week we reported that parliamentary health service ombudsman Dame Julie Mellor knew last summer about her deputy, Mick Martin, being involved in the cover up of sexual harassment against an HR director while in his previous role at Derbyshire Healthcare Foundation Trust.

HSJ readers said Mr Martin needed “to do the decent thing” and resign, while some said Dame Julie should leave her post too – “her lack of action calls into question her competence and fitness for the position of ombudsman”.

Editor Alastair McLellan, meanwhile, tweeted that he thought Mr Martin was in an “unsustainable position”.

On Monday, in an HSJ editorial, he went further: “Dame Julie and Mr Martin to recognise that their continued employment by the PHSO is unhealthy for the organisation and those it serves. They should do the honourable thing and stand down.”

HSJ does not tend to join in with the shooting down of regulators, but Mr McLellan writes: “The performance of the leadership of the PHSO has now passed the bounds of acceptability and is damaging the reputation of the NHS and Parliament. It is also, most importantly, undermining the confidence of those who look to it for help.”

He then goes through the charge sheet from June 2014 to last week, outlining the PHSO’s dismal recent record.

The new branch

National director of patient safety Mike Durkin has spoken to HSJ ahead of the launch of the new Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch, which is set to begin its work from 1 April.

HSJ has also learned HSIB (which had a working title of IPSIS) will be given a “safe space” to carry out its fact finding, “no blame” investigations, with evidence documents being protected and only its final reports being published.

HSIB will also be charged with creating an exemplar model for investigations by local NHS organisations as part of an effort to improve the health service’s ability to learn from incidents and errors.

Dr Durkin told us a new role of chief investigator would be created at the branch, which is expected to become part of NHS Improvement next month.

Although HSIB will rely on NHS Improvement for what Dr Durkin called its “pay and rations”, he said the chief investigator would have operational independence.

HSIB is expected to carry out around 30 investigations in its first year and is being created after criticism in the Morecambe Bay and Mid Staffs inquiries over repeated failures of the NHS to learn from its patient safety errors.