Amid claims of growing frustration about a lack of qualified staff, that senior managers are not listening and that they have repeatedly failed to act, the JEP has spoken to senior hospital doctors this week who have decided to blow the whistle.
Against a background of management secrecy, they talk of increasing anger that money is being spent on managers – who know nothing but the NHS way of doing things, have job titles that no one understands and are not actually needed – and not on medical staff. And they say morale has hit rock bottom.
Health issued a statement yesterday about the cancellations – but only after being contacted for comment by the JEP.
It said: ‘Some elective surgery appointments have been cancelled due to staff sickness, annual leave and vacancies in our theatre suite.
‘We anticipate that this will be for a short period only. Emergency surgery will continue as normal.
‘We are sorry for the inconvenience and distress caused and for the short notice some of our patients received. We recognise that coming into hospital can be a daunting experience and the impact that cancellations have on our patients, their families and carers, and all our staff. Please be assured we are making every effort to reschedule appointments.
‘Health and Community Services, including Jersey General Hospital, remain open for patients and visitors.’
One senior clinician said that they had decided to speak out because Islanders were suffering unnecessarily. They described a system that had ground to a halt after years of calls for better resourcing had been ignored.
They said that morale was particularly low, with recruitment issues being exacerbated by people going on long-term sick leave because of stress or going back to the UK because they have had enough.
‘Management have failed to address this for years,’ they said. ‘It is now at a critical point. We are at the emergency stage now. It reached crisis point a couple of weeks ago and we cannot see when it will improve significantly.
‘We had to cancel all non-urgent theatre work so last week the Hospital was only doing urgent and emergency work. This week it is soon, urgent and emergency.’
They explained that urgent would include all cancer operations, with ‘soon’ being people who were in great pain.
The JEP has also learned that the lack of theatre time is impacting on the ability to carry out planned caesarean sections.
The senior doctor added: ‘Managers tend to sit up and listen to concerns from clinicians when operating theatres have to be closed. Senior clinicians have been saying for years that action needs to be taken, but nothing has happened.’
And the doctor revealed that there had been occasions when essential medical supplies could not be sourced because invoices from suppliers had not been paid.
In an exclusive interview in today’s paper – which the JEP has extraordinarily decided to publish anonymously given the overwhelming public interest in shining a light into the workings of a crucial public service whose managers recently refused to make public the findings of the root-and-branch review into health services – the doctor talks about the way they say services have been hit by underinvestment and what has precipitated the current crisis.
They also reveal that not even the consultants had been shown the report, which is understood to show that the engagement score for Health as an employer is 46%.
‘This is the worst it has been in a decade, by far the worst,’ they said. ‘Theatres used to operate perhaps with a surplus of staff, potentially a bit overstaffed, but morale was high and productivity was really good. Theatres would run with seven members of staff. Then the number was reduced to six people. That was about right. It then went down to five a couple of years ago and that leaves absolutely no resilience.
‘If one person goes off, you cannot do anything. The staff get really frustrated and then they go off sick with stress or go back to the UK, where there is currently a big recruitment drive for nurses.’
Another senior doctor told the JEP this week that the failure to release the report only fuelled distrust and suspicion, even among the most senior medics.
‘There is a lot of dissatisfaction at the moment,’ they said. ‘There is a real problem with recruitment and retention of staff which is causing the problems in theatre.
‘I think the problems that we have got are being exacerbated by the fact that everyone is so exhausted. Everyone is feeling a bit more dissatisfied with life because everyone has been working so hard for the past 18 months without a break.’
They added: ‘There is certainly a bit more of a disconnect in the sense that senior management teams are not where the medical staff are. It would be really helpful if they shared the findings of the Be Heard survey with people.
‘They have hired another manager called the interim head of culture and engagement at HCS, whatever that means, but they have not told us what it says so it is quite hard to address issues when we are not told what they are. It’s all a little bit frustrating.
‘Why are they appointing new managers when we don’t know what the issues are? There may be nothing in the Be Heard report and it may be really bad. If it is, just stand up and say sorry.’
