Comments by "TJ Marx" (@tjmarx) on "Doctor who helped catch Lucy Letby calls for full public inquiry | ITV News" video.
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Every management and HR team in every organisation in the capitalist world , be it private, public or otherwise has to handle staff complains about other members of staff. More frequently than not these are empty complaints. IR law, and many employment contracts (particularly where a union is involved such as in nursing) grant employees strong protections against persecution, harrassment or workplace bullying. These protections mean that a manager can not approach an employee about a thing without sufficient, strong evidence they've done something wrong, let alone sanction the employee. Employees have legal recourse for employers whom act in this way friviously.
NHS management do not have special labour rules, they can't ignore an employee's rights. They abide by the same IR laws as everyone else and have union negotiated contracts to consider. They need evidence before they can act, so too do police.
What do you suppose would happen if we removed those protections from employees and required management to persecute employees on every claim?
There were several thousand staff complaints about other members of staff at the same hospital over the same period. The majority of which were nothing. The usual, personality conflicts, attempts at workplace bullying, third party conjecture, etc. What do you suppose would have made this case, these complaints, stand out against that backdrop?
It's all well and good to fain shock and call for change over this case in isolation, with the benefit of hindsight but that isn't how things play out in reality. Identifying a staff member as a freaking serial killer, in real time, without the benefit of hindsight, with no actual evidence and halfcock complaints from other staff is hard, if not impossible.
There are always people who come out of the woodwork in cases like this talking about how they've been in whatever role for however long and blah blah blah everyone should be outraged.
But you know what, I've been in medicine for 18 years and I'm going to say that's a load of bollocks. Staff in hospitals bully each other. Sometimes that bullying can involve a group picking on a single member of staff. Sometimes that bullying can involve frivious or unfounded complaints against the bullying victim. Sometimes complaints can jump to unfounded conclusions about another staff member.
Focusing on the management team because your outrage over this case isn't satisfied yet is misplaced. Instead, the inquiry should focus on what it is that drives a disproportionate number of English nurses to murder their patients compared to comparable nations. What is happening inside the nursing training and recruitment processes in addition to/or everyday role that motivates this to happen? Witch hunts don't solve anything, let's instead treat the cause.
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