Patients, especially women, are being 'gaslighted, dismissed, and fobbed off' when they raise concerns about NHS care, England's Patient Safety Commissioner says.
Dr Henrietta Hughes said the 'patient's anecdote is the canary in the coal mine' of what is happening in the NHS and is 'the thing that tells us there's something going wrong'.
She added: 'But too often we hear about patients who have raised concerns being gaslighted, dismissed, and fobbed off.'
Her comments come after an extended catalogue of NHS care scandals, with multiple shocking inquiries into the state of maternity care at some Trusts.
In an interview with the British Medical Journal, Dr Hughes, who took up her role in 2022, said women in some cases had been patronised and had their concerns dismissed.
Dr Henrietta Hughes said the 'patient's anecdote is the canary in the coal mine' of what is happening in the NHS and is 'the thing that tells us there's something going wrong'
She added that she is 'swimming against the tide' when it comes to making a lasting cultural change in the NHS.
Her role, funded by the Department of Health and Social Care, was created after a recommendation in a report examining three scandals: hormone pregnancy tests that are thought to be associated with birth defects and miscarriages; sodium valproate, an antiepileptic drug that can cause birth defects when taken by pregnant women; and pelvic mesh implants, which have been linked to serious complications.
Dr Hughes, a former GP said that too often female patients who raised concerns were passed off as 'difficult women'.
She added: 'It shows a very dismissive and very old fashioned, patronising attitude to patients who have identified problems and need to have their voices heard.'
While Dr Hughes, a former medical director at NHS England and national guardian for the NHS, doesn't examine individual cases, she wants to simplify the way people can access help and make their voices heard.
'There's over 100 patient safety organisations, and one of the things that we'll be working on this year is doing the Patient Safety Atlas of Powers, an easy-to-read guide of the arm's length bodies and regulators and what their roles and remits are,' she said.
'Because as far as I'm concerned, they don't join up. They don't reference the next step in the chain.'
She said NHS trusts are in danger of focusing too much on finance which makes the working culture 'toxic'.
She added that she is 'swimming against the tide' when it comes to making a lasting cultural change, adding: 'People are quite comfortable with the way they do things already.'
ThePatient Safety Commissioner is currently overseeing the implementation of Martha's Rule.
Describedas 'one of the most important changes to patient care in recent years'Martha's Rule is an established formal right for families to get a second opinion from medics, if they feel their concerns about a relative aren't being taken seriously.
It is named after13-year-old Martha Mills who died of sepsis while under the care ofKing's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in south Londonin 2021.
A coroner ruled she would most likely have survived if doctors had identified the warning signs of her rapidly deteriorating condition, and transferred her to intensive care, earlier.
Her death came despiteher parents expressing concern about her deteriorating condition to her medical team on multiple occasions.
Hundreds of NHShospitals will roll out Martha's Rule thanks to the tireless campaigning of her parents.
The Patient Safety Commissioner is currently overseeing the implementation of Martha's Rulenamed after 13-year-old Martha Mills who died of sepsis while under the care of King's College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust in south London in 2021
DrHughes said the difference patients could make to improving care varied from major overhauls to the day-to-day.
She highlighted a recent example from a visit she made to a stroke ward.
'One of the patients said, "In the toilets, it would be much better if you had toilet paper on both sides of the cubicle, because if you’ve had a stroke you’ve only got a 50 per cent chance of being able to reach it,"' she said.
'The power of that story is that you can have a unit full of experts—clinical nurse specialists, professors, people with PhDs—and they know everything about stroke, but they’ve never been in a cubicle with a patient who’s had a stroke when they’re on the toilet.'
A Department of Health and Social Care spokesperson said: 'Too many patients are not listened to, treated with respect, or given the information they need to access the right services.
'This Government will prioritise patient safety to ensure that the NHS treats everyone with the high quality and safe care that they deserve.'
