Doctor 'scared' to raise alarm
A consultant at Stafford Hospital has claimed he felt "intimidated" after raising concerns about the standard of care.
Senior consultant Dr Pradip Singh said he first warned managers of problems with medical practices as long ago as 2005.
He claims problems still persist three months after the publication of the damning Healthcare Commission report which showed a lack of care led to hundreds of patient deaths.
In written evidence submitted to the House of Commons all-party Health Committee the 48-year-old gastroenterologist said: "Over the years, many clinicians had noticed deterioration in the standards of patient care, which became particularly acute approximately three years ago when major cutbacks were made in staffing numbers.
"This included a savage reduction in the number of nursing staff.
"Sadly, despite the recent talk of transformation and the damning Healthcare Commission report, the ground realities have not changed much."
He alleged that one patient, who had a treatable tumour in his pancreas, was left with inoperable cancer when a report into his condition was lost.
Two weeks after the report was published, Dr Singh was suspended from work for allegedly verbally abusing a nurse. He was reinstated a week later and claims this was an attempt by the trust to intimidate him.
Eric Morton, the interim chief executive at Mid Staffordshire NHS Trust, said: "Dr Singh's suspension was unconnected with whistleblowing and disciplinary procedures are still ongoing.
"The trust has an open policy toward whistleblowing and far from attempting to suppress it, we introduced a policy in 2008 which made it the responsibility of all staff to report any concerns they had. All members of staff received a letter from me with their May payslips reminding them of their responsibility to raise concerns."
