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So, I’m going to do this blog as an anonymous story and the very fact that I have to do this as an anonymous story is utterly ridiculous but does demonstrate even further the utterly ridiculous nature of the situation we find ourselves in.

A friend of mine works in healthcare (many of my friends do, because of the purpose of this story let’s just say this is a friend of mine who is not a male or a female). Whilst they were indulging in their perfectly reasonable sporting hobby at the weekend, a child within the same group (not their own child) suffered a head injury. The injury was not significantly severe and it was more like a whip lash injury, but the child started to show signs of neuro disability including slurred speech and rolling eyes, my friend was left in the position (as a known medical person within the group) of making a decision as to what to do.

After deciding that the child in question was not in great shape, my friend decided to take the child immediately to accident and emergency in their own car as my friend knows the system pretty well. As the child was breathing and conscious it was unlikely that an ambulance would attend the scene particularly quickly as the child would a deem to be “stable” on the analytics.

On presentation at accident and emergency the child was put on a trolley because the place was busy as it was Saturday afternoon. The triage was not ideal and it was only when one of the accident and emergency nurses actually saw the child did they realise the situation was relatively significant.

Ultimately the child had a CT scan and was discharged that same night with a clean bill of health but, of course, it could have ended up very differently.

On discussion of the case with my friend they suggested that they had been inclined to include this in a reflective learning log as part of their revalidation in CPD but had realised should they do this they might well be heavily criticised for taking the child to hospital in their own car.

And so here we have it, here is what society has done to healthcare. Here is the reward that the public get for all the compensation and the blame that they have ladened onto healthcare practitioners for decisions wrongly made, mistakes made or “unacceptable” outcomes for members of their family.

Faced with this situation we’re asked to make the best of something difficult and do what we feel at the time is in the best interests of the member of the public as we walk past them in the street and see they are hurt; so, we now have to worry whether the actions that we take will affect our careers and the lives of our family going forwards.

The people at the General Dental Council, and more recently and sadly the General Medical Council in the disgraceful case of the doctor who was suspended at work and then, on appeal, erased from the register based on evidence from the reflective log, have now created a situation where they maintain that they do not understand what defensive practice is.

Defensive practice is insipid as it creeps like a cancer through the medical professions of nurses, doctors, dentists and anyone else who practices in the pursuit of patient’s health.

This will not be fixed by good intentions, only by action at the very top level of the tree can we change societies attitude to help the people who are trying to help society.

Blog post number: 1555