Consultation on a Patient Safety Commissioner Role for Scotland

Yes - on medical devices as it is essential the MESH harm to women is top, as so many need urgent treatment . But there are many other wrongs - and medicines is such a vast field you could land someone with dealing with little else for several years.

I marked YES reluctantly therefore. Suggest: staged investigations into medicines, starting with only a few cases. Otherwise, too many will continue suffering for other reasons, including being cut off from treatment, post Covid. Nor does medication cover the deaths of numerous babies currently still not answered.

The role must expand from the start, surely! What is the safety role if it narrows to certain
factors only. This would lead to accusations of tokenism.
Look, for instance, at the huge safety risk over chronic pain patients being denied renewal of their treatments in time. Look at the bad communications over health in general, with getting transparency from Scottish Govt Depts extremely difficult. In May 2021, it was discovered that the Scottish Government's Clinical Priorities Unit, which deals with chronic pain, had failed to inform patients that advice had changed from July 29, 2020 to permit resumption of their injections under new safety restrictions.
Letters replying for the previous health secretary, excluded the update from the Faculty of Pain Medicine, meaning several thousand patients had had an extra ten months without treatment, with some patients being cumulatively 15 months since their last injection. The suffering levels are appalling. Gross delays are a known suicide risk and some of these patients had attempted suicide previously.

Must be appointed by the Parliament and report to the Parliament.
For credibility, you can't have any Government involved.

There must be total independence from Government or the NHS to stave off the worst of the cronyism claims which are rife in Scotland. and not without foundation.
This is "small country" syndrome and every attempt must be made to avoid it.

There have been too many ineffectual people appointed to various roles at public expense.

The Scottish Parliament, cross party. Nobody's perfect! But there is a tangible difference between the Government and the Parliament. The parliament does show openness principles. The committee investigating the Alex Salmond situation saw shocking examples of Government refusals to produce evidence this increased public mistrust in Govt officialdom - irrespective of which "side". people were on.

it looks like there are numerous bodies paid to help at public expense.
But having dealt with people fighting health injustices for many years, I call most of the "help"sites the Potemkin Villages.. look good on the outside, little behind the facade.
"Patient voices" being heard is another PR buzz term - heard sometimes but nothing happens. People have their say to let off steam - no result.
The Government's own complaints system is a mockery - if someone gets to Stage 2,
it's still totally inhouse, then sanctioned by another inhouse official and people aren't even allowed to see the inhouse report in advance to check for errors. Final word is Government's. None of these systems is democratic.
The Patients' Charter hardly ever kicks in, the Regulatory system is incredibly difficult for a normal person to tackle, so is the Ombudsman system, which simply does not answer questions in my experience and I doubt what expertise some of these handlers have, PASS and Care Opinion go for letting off steam, hardly action. The Scottish Health Council was called a collection of "toothless hamsters" by a (then) SP health committee chair. That fits not only them but others.

Scotland is a country lacking safety for patients through there being, in reality, so few sources providing genuine help.
People know it's not happening if they encounter some of these official bodies which have become something of a cottage industry - providing little hope that the public will be helped or any real investigation accomplished.. Some seem afraid for their funding if they criticise government.

To ascertain if a complaint is genuine, then investigate properly and thoroughly . So few bodies seem capable of doing this - or want to do it - but it's essential not to cut corners.

Investigative ability.

if something isn't established in law, there is no clout behind it.

I think this role would be helpful for all these protected characteristics. There is considerable need for strengthening and not taking it for granted that this is already taken care of.
Example: three years ago, I was trying to help several thousand patients with disabilities who were having a service withdrawn. I discovered that the Equality & Human Rights Commission, who produced questionnaires for public bodies on service changes/withdrawals did not check these when completed! They wrote to me admitting that. So there was no oversight of protection. In that case, a very poor Equality document was compiled by a health board PR - but he would have known it would go nowhere .

An obvious point is that people cannot usually afford lawyers to pursue a health calamity although some have financislly harmed themselves in desperation to get some justice.
So knowing there was one person to turn to is good.

Boards don't like being reported to someone who will actually take action!
They have for years been fairly confident that they can "get aff" and spin their way out of problems. Spin is massive in the NHS in Scotland, to the detriment of the public.

Just look at some of those Ayrshire cases,.

Whether on an island or in a city, the problems of cover up are prevalent.

Safety is essential and a commissioner appointment would underline that.

I think the character and personality of the Commissioner is all importsnt and that he or she should not be from the same relatively small establishment pool. Avoidance of pals and cronies is vital.