{"id":202402,"date":"2025-10-15T18:35:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T18:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/202402\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T18:35:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T18:35:08","slug":"whos-to-blame-for-the-nhss-blame-culture-nhs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/202402\/","title":{"rendered":"Who\u2019s to blame for the NHS\u2019s blame culture? | NHS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jeremy Hunt\u2019s article (Here\u2019s the direct effect of our NHS blame culture: babies die. Tragedy after tragedy, it can\u2019t go on, 9 October<\/a>) will be welcome to many, especially those healthcare professionals who have had to endure the intimidating mistrust and adversarial working culture he describes.<\/p>\n

What is missing from his account is the seminal role of government\u2019s NHS<\/a> reforms in creating these problems. In particular, the creation, then proliferation, of commercialised and competing autarkic NHS trusts and outside providers over many years. This has generated a growing culture of corporate defensiveness and reputation anxiety. Within such conditions, practitioners then adapt to behave much like employees in large commercial organisations \u2013 they must show compliance, \u201cloyalty\u201d, conformity and seamless performance, albeit speciously.<\/p>\n

This tendency has increased with every reform over the last 40 years; each has carried forward a neoliberal agenda \u2013 both Labour and Conservative governments have devised policies and managements to assure this. The currently vaunted 10-year plan will merely entrench the problems Jeremy Hunt<\/a> has otherwise so adroitly observed and understood.
Dr David Zigmond
Executive committee, Doctors\u00a0for\u00a0the\u00a0NHS<\/p>\n

Jeremy Hunt rightly points to the\u00a0reluctance of healthcare workers to admit when errors have been made, and praises the example of a midwife meeting the father of a baby who died, where she expressed remorse and wished she\u00a0had acted differently. This honesty led to forgiveness and improved confidence that lessons had been learned.<\/p>\n

It strikes me that, in general, politicians are similarly reluctant to admit when they get it wrong. Jeremy Hunt\u2019s imposition in 2015 of a new contract<\/a> on junior doctors (now called resident doctors) was on the false premise that if they could be forced to work more at weekends this would reduce delayed treatments and discharges.<\/p>\n

He failed to recognise that this simplistic solution would also require ancillary services \u2013 investigations, physiotherapy, social work \u2013 to be fully funded and operational seven days a week. The resulting doctors\u2019 strike and subsequent imposition of the contract caused huge resentment. Perhaps it is a case of \u201cpolitician,\u00a0heal thyself\u201d?
Dr Richard Sloan
Retired palliative medicine consultant, Dorchester, Dorset<\/p>\n

Jeremy Hunt\u2019s comments are well meaning but not original, and he had adequate opportunity to change the system. The most significant call to end the blame culture was by Prof Donald Berwick 25 years ago in his seminal publication To Err Is Human. The Department of Health then published An Organisation With a Memory<\/a>, which spelled out constructive error management, but\u00a0in the NHS Patient Safety Strategy of 2019 (after Hunt had been health secretary for six years), it was stated that we need to do more to change the culture.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s hope the 10-year plan will help to deliver that change through\u00a0making it easier for patients and public to speak up.
Dr Eric Watts
Former chair, Doctors<\/a> for the NHS<\/p>\n

While I agree with Jeremy Hunt\u2019s view on promoting a no-blame culture, implementing that is easier said than done. It is not just litigation that acts as an impediment to learning. Other factors such as complaints processes, coroners\u2019 inquests (which have become increasingly adversarial) and even the threat of referral to professional bodies all act as a deterrent to a culture of openness and self-reflection.
Dr Ian Freeman
Consultant paediatrician, Manchester<\/p>\n

Have an opinion on anything you\u2019ve read in the Guardian today? Please email<\/a> us your letter and it will be considered for publication in our letters<\/a> section.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jeremy Hunt\u2019s article (Here\u2019s the direct effect of our NHS blame culture: babies die. Tragedy after tragedy, it…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":202403,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[102,2960,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-202402","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-healthcare","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202402","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=202402"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/202402\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/202403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=202402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=202402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=202402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}