Everyone must have seen the usual sentence in the media and NHS documents mentioning " transparency" or "greater" transparency. The word is repeated and repeated until people start to believe it. Saying it and doing it are spectacularly different. Its a bit like a man bragging about his bedroom prowess when he really takes BMA backed Viagra. The medical establishment can be compared to this analogy. I can understand that they won't like it but essentially, its all show. The medical establishment hates being shown up for who they really are - an group of impotent elderly men who believe they know how the world functions but are really quite outdated now. Showmanship isn't working anymore. Possibly because there are rebels everywhere and the internet cannot be controlled by them. At present, there are junior doctors rebelling and striking probably for the first time since the medical profession's inception. These are all signs that the establishment is losing its grip of everything including their own young doctors. The medical establishment with the management hierarchy like to play games. Their favorite game is "hide and seek" when they have important documents that undermine their reputation that need to be concealed. They play this really well possibly because they have played it for many many years. It was agreed by the medical supremacy that one should propagate an image of "one has changed" to appease the public after the blunders in Shipman.. Shipman had damaged the entire establishment's serene reputation. They managed to silence Bristol by an inquiry saying "all change here" that never happened. Shipman though was different. Shipman had been protected by them for years and all of a sudden it was bedlam. This aim of a "Changed Image" is all well and good but has the public been convinced of this facade? The other way to protect their reputation is to engage tame rebels to join into the fold. This has happened at the GMC many many times. If you join, your threat of criticism has gone. I am not a great believer in this "if you can't beat them, join them" or " you can make changes from within". I am a believer of standing by your principles and your actions no matter what. When you tread the path of whistleblowing and make these decisions, you need to stand by your beliefs. Anything else would fail yourself and the public. If one builds a house on poor foundations, it will eventually collapse. This is the case with the NHS. Because senior figures have been spouting the "no blame" culture, this means everyone who is to blame has escaped with huge pensions and no accountability. I mention pensions because when you are in the company of establishment figures. they suffer from a condition where they have too much money, a corrupt outlook on life, a careless attitude to the vulnerable and a habit of showing off their money. This they do by posh suits and silk handkerchiefs. The greed normally drips off thesepeople and you can often find them filling their pension pot after years of neglecting wrong doing in the NHS and concealing what is important. The establishment believes in its power and the power to squash anyone who remotely challenges it. Of course, poor care and graveyards can only be concealed for so long before someone somewhere starts asking those uncomfortable questions. I have seen many mistreated patients suffer horribly because of this lack of transparency. Deaths of patients do not result in accountability even when payouts are made. The same mistakes happen again and again and nothing changes. Reports, inquiries and reviews come and go making false promises that no one can keep. Essentially, what we have here is a system where there is no feedback, honesty or integrity. It is possible for people to achieve the elusive word called "justice" but at what cost? I am about to illustrate my point by talking about my adventure in obtaining transparency. Its true, I have the ability to win and I often do but does this help patient safety? Is there any feedback mechanism for accountability? Well, no there isn't. My game of hide and seek started after I had discovered most people had lied to me about the existence of the report vindicating me. Between 1998-2005, I had been labelled mentally ill and the GMC felt this would distract the masses from vital issues I raised. Everything that had been promised in the Bristol Inquiry by the media and Bolsin fell flat on its face. I discovered, these were empty promises made to the media to place young doctors like me into a sense of false security. The GMC had concealed the report, the Trust had not sent the final report to me nor told me the outcome, the Deanery just went silent. All roads led to Professor John Temple, the man responsible for me and the man who failed to do anything about the poor care in North Staffordshire. He may swan away being his usual huffy self but the buck stopped with him. I thought we had a changed culture now. So where is Prof Temple in all this? Retired and drinking tea perhaps? Lots of people failed in their jobs. I could name a whole big list of people more senior than me who had the responsibility of doing something about the poor care. Temple was no doubt very happy when the Consultant of the ward I raised concerns on was even given clinical excellence awards. Here is the list John http://www.hospitaldr.co.uk/blogs/features/a-listing-of-the-2011-national-cea-recipients . For all members of the public reading this, this is the NHS and Department of Health's idea of accountability. An award is given despite a an entire report criticizing the poor care of the ward she was in charge of. Hope Monica took that report to her Ceremony of Gold :). No doubt all the establishment figures were sitting there clapping for her. It still didn't take away the irony of having a surname called "Spit-ieri" on a Respiratory Ward. Mind you, it was better than Dr Panting's surname. Was she held accountable for the poor care endemic on this ward? No she wasn't. No one was. Its not like this with just my case. It is like this with everyone's case. I think that is the important point here. In 2005, I still had a long journey in discovering where certain pieces of evidence existed. I decided to create what I call a "paper flap". This is when you instigate complaints with the purpose of tactically engaging the opposition into admissions and forcing disclosures of documents. This I did with Professor Rod Griffiths. Rod had a hard time with me and ended up retiring after our three year joust. I am not surprised really given the Department of Health lawyers lost against me at the General Medical Council. One has to remember a rule at the GMC. They are spectacularly cr*p at handling complaints. This is why you need to keep going. They make life incredibly hard for you by changing the meaning of your complaint, misinterpreting words and generally messing everything up. Workers at the GMC assume that everyone is thick but them. The truth is everyone is highly intelligent and only they can realistically be classed within the "thick" category. Thickness can be classed in many ways - lack of knowledge, purposeful, malicious or just airhead-like. When the papers started to fly as I predicated, Rod accidentally admitted that there were reports vindicating me. My ears and eyes perked up after 7 years of banging my head against a brick wall. It was 2 am and I was eating a nice Galaxy bar to keep me awake reading the Department of Health's long boring letters that insulted me and whined like flapping hens. This was the point, I had made some headway and discovered what I had been hunting for. I know it is very embarrassing that the Department of Wealth's power just did not manage to win against just me and my keyboard. This battle was very useful as many bits of information fell out of the Department of Health's secret whistleblower skeleton drawer. Yes, information just falls out when you have people pinned against the GMC wall forcing their hand. Even paperwork falls through your post. Its a bit like Tales of the Unexpected. That is the beauty of a paper flap. Lawyers flap, when they mislead, they can't remember what they mislead on and they mislead again and cough up more information. Because the situation becomes so complex and medical, their side kicks take over while they go on holiday and suddenly you have more documents on your lap. Soon, an entire house of files can be created just from a paper flap. On discovery of the cleverly concealed report, the GMC with the Department of Health and the Trust started to play in their playground. They started to play hide and seek with me. It was a bit like two year olds apart from the fact that these guys were playing while being paid by the tax payer and hard working NHS doctors. The full tale of amusement was written about here. Yes, I know its quite sad to see grown lawyers play silly games but someone has to. No smarties were being provided by the Department of Wealth that day. http://www.webarchive.org.uk/wayback/archive/20100824013642/http://www.nhsexposed.com/patients/hospitals/nstaffs/dr-rita-pal-wins-at-ico.shtml Its worth a read not because its about me but because this is the kind of stupidity they all get up to when faced with any member of public who challenges them. We ask ourselves whether concealing this report was really in the public interest. Surely, the public in Stoke on Trent had the right to know what was done to their relatives. I was to discover that these traits of concealment happened in Gosport as well. Reports were concealed from the public eye and relatives of families like tough Ann Reeves fought hard to obtain transparency. No doubt the NHS has many concealed reports lying around gathering dust. The next question is this, is it fair for members of the public to fight so much for basic transparency? These are tax payers who pay for our health service. Surely, they even essentially own the reports done using their money. Clearly, NHS management has never believed in that rationale. Is it fair for doctors like me to fight for nearly a decade to obtain basic reports that should have been disclosed to me years before? Does every whistleblower have to go through this and if they do, how can anyone reasonably expect healthcare staff to raise concerns? We should remember that we aren't Prof Steve Bolsin or other star doctors. We cannot command inquiries, nor can we enlist our friends in the media to run with our whistleblowing tales. I like every other member of public are average people trying to get on with our life and expecting a modicum of truth and transparency in a system we played a part in. Yes, I won against the Department of Health lawyers, I even won at the Information Commissioners [IC]. The IC omits my name so I am here to say its me! One can gloat about it until the cows come home. The important point here is this, it took me,a person with reasonable intellect, a number of years of consistent hard work to win. Is this fair on the disabled, ill and vulnerable when they are trying to find the answers to what went wrong? The fact that I could stand at the top of the mountain and declare wins everywhere doesn't quite help the fact that the system fails the people it is supposed to support [ the public]. Anyway, here is the infamous report from the IC. Did I need to go through all that rubbish when the hospital report could have just as easily been sent to me by the Trust. https://ico.org.uk/media/action-weve-taken/decision-notices/2007/410746/FS50085508.pdf Having won, half the report was still redacted. Redacted is some posh word for concealing all the important bits that no one wants you to see. Even after a finding against the Trust here, no one was held accountable. As time went on, I asked Norman Lamb MP. Sadly, it was a case of Silence of the Lamb as he merely shooed me away. So whose responsibility is it to show me the entire document without all the black marker pen scrawled over the important bits. Is anyone man enough to show me the report I whistleblew about? The answer is no. The Department of Health, North Staffordshire NHS Trust, the GMC are all sheer wimps who can't man up enough to show me the entire report. I whistleblew in 1998 and its now 2015. Lets see how many more years they plan on hiding the report like petulant little kids playing with tax payers money in their playground of riches. Did they even think of sending the report to all the patients relatives who were affected? Well, no they didn't. Each of these departments [ including the CQC] have been asked by me to forward the report to each person affected but that request was turned down. So we can see what "transparency" is to the NHS. If they cannot practice openness and transparency with me, does the future look bright for relatives and patients seeking the truth? What of reports written by Mencap, the Death by Indifference report. How many patients were able to seek proper accountability for the problems they faced? You can bet your bottom dollar, the Mencap report is merely the tip of the iceberg and there are huge numbers of reports and patients deaths that have just been hidden under the floorboards of the NHS. Can a patient with Learning Disability or an elderly patient with limited resources fight this kind of battle for transparency? The establishment specifically sets the bar high so that there is limited accountability. Then I guess if we really apportioned blame to establishment figures, we would have to re-open the Tower of London to house all the corrupt officialdom! Even though the tax payer may approve of that, the establishment ensures the real skeletons are hidden where they cannot be found. Finlay Scott, ex head poncho at the General Medical Council told us all the truth about the establishment view of transparency. It is this "Transparency was like a greenhouse - you could look in but not enter the room" We have to credit this now forgotten Chief Executive with some entertaining quotes and some amusing times. I never confirmed whether it was the only truthful sentence uttered by him. I am sure there must have been others :).