MP calls on healthcare body to listen to “critical voices”

Diane Abbott MP wrote to City and Hackney Primary Care Trust (PCT) to ask why it had refused to meet with a man who had complained about tuberculosis treatment at one of its hospitals.

The PCT is supposed to carry out reviews of the quality of its services, with those who have had experience of them being given the chance to speak at working group meetings. But when Andrew McCabe, whose late brother Philip was a tuberculosis patient at Homerton University Hospital, asked for permission to voice his complaints at one such meeting, he was told this was not possible.

Mr McCabe said: “I wanted to contribute to the PCT’s Strategic TB Working Group, whose job it is to look into the commissioning of TB services. The group is supposed to engage with users of these services but refused to hear from me.”

He added: “They said I was not eligible to attend meetings because I was not a user of the service, but I was my late brother’s carer and the term ‘service user’ is supposed to include carers.”

Mr McCabe believes he has been stonewalled because he claimed the hospital excluded his brother from treatment on an ad hoc basis, inadequately monitored him when he was an outpatient and anonymously changed records relating to his care. The hospital has said that medical management of Mr McCabe’s brother was appropriate and would stand up to scrutiny.

Mr McCabe said: “What motivates someone to be interested in the quality of their services is almost always a bad experience, so if you only want to speak to people who want to praise our services, you will never actually speak to anybody.”

Diane Abbott MP has asked for an urgent meeting regarding Mr McCabe’s case and has written a letter to the PCT to this effect. In Ms Abbott’s letter she stated: “The PCT’s overall approach to this case…indicates a lack of commitment to public engagement and unwillingness to hear critical voices.”

She added that she wanted to be “fully briefed as to…what action [the PCT] are taking to work with the public and all stakeholders to address the fact that we have one of the highest TB rates in Europe.”

Last week the independent Healthcare Commission said Mr McCabe’s complaints had revealed the PCT’s “unacceptable and unaccountable ad hoc approach to requests…from members of the public to attend strategy/working groups”. The Commission also said the PCT had been wrong not to investigate Mr McCabe’s concerns about potential failings in TB treatment at the Homerton.

A City and Hackney Primary Care Trust spokesperson said: “City and Hackney Teaching Primary Care Trust is totally committed to involving service users in improvements to health services. A service user was involved in the initial development of the Tuberculosis (TB) strategy and an individual who has previously suffered from TB sits on the TB Strategy Group. The Local Involvement Network, which consists of patients and the public have been invited to nominate a representative to sit on the TB strategy group.

“The PCT runs regular face to face events with patients and the public; for instance in November our staff and local clinicians were present in Kingsland Road Shopping Centre for seven full days to talk to the public about healthy choices.

“In October we worked with Age Concern to meet over 200 older people and their carers and gather their views on how to stay active in older age. We also undertake telephone interviews, focus groups and surveys to test the views of the public on local health services.”