Post by caspday on Dec 26, 2012 20:16:25 GMT -5
The largest private provider of NHS out-of-hours GP services is facing allegations by senior doctors that its service in London is so short-staffed it is regularly unsafe.
Harmoni, which has contracts covering 8 Cheap NFL Jerseys million patients across large areas of London and southern England, is also alleged to have manipulated its performance data, masking delays in seeing patients and other missed targets.A seven-week-old baby with a suspected respiratory infection died in November after repeated calls to the service over several days, during which it is alleged to have failed to follow protocols in key areas. Sources with knowledge of the case say they fear a four-hour wait for cheap nike nfl jerseys a doctor to see the baby at a Harmoni-run clinic at the Whittington hospital in London on the Saturday he died may have contributed to the tragedy.The allegations come as the number of NHS contracts being put out to competitive bidding is rising sharply under the government's controversial Health and Social Care Act. Harmoni has been one of the most successful private sector bidders in the recent tendering. It has won more than a quarter of the contracts for the new NHS 111 service, which will be introduced nationwide from next spring.Documents seen by the Guardian, and sources close to the service, indicate that Harmoni has frequently operated in the capital with shifts unfilled, both recently and over an extended period.Dr Fred Kavalier, the former clinical lead at Harmoni, said he resigned in January last year because he felt unable to be responsible for the service, which he believed had become unsafe after cheap china jerseys cost-saving cuts in clinicians' shifts and the length of time allowed for GPs to see patients, and a failure to recruit and pay GPs sufficiently.A Norfolk family is suing Harmoni's out-of-hours service and one of its nurses after the death of a 19-year-old woman. Although the nurse has admitted being in breach of her duty, she claims the company should have indemnified her. Harmoni says its insurance excludes responsibility for negligence by nurses.In the Whittington case, crucial checks are said to be missing from the notes of the doctor who first saw the baby. A second doctor, who assessed the case by phone from another site a couple of days later and downgraded it from urgent, failed to record his call, as is required.Local doctors were receiving frantic texts from a Harmoni rota co-ordinator for north central London on the Friday cheap jerseys from china and Saturday in question, asking for help with unfilled shifts that weekend, one recipient told the Guardian. Sources say the baby died shortly after arriving at the clinic, which has been regularly overbooked or closed because of staff shortages. The baby was transferred at the last minute to the NHS A&E department next door, but by then medics were unable to save him.Harmoni acknowledged that a baby had died in a "serious incident" but said it was unable to comment on the case while it was the subject of formal investigation. The incident has been reported to the NHS regulator, the Care Quality Commission, and cheap nfl jerseys china the General Medical Council.Harmoni did not deny staff shifts had been unfilled, or that London clinics including the Whittington had been closed for several hours on recent occasions because clinicians had not been available to run them. But the private equity-owned company, which was sold for ￡48m to Care UK in November, categorically denies that the service has been unsafe or failed to meet contractual obligations on clinic opening and response times. Care UK told the Guardian NFL Cheap Jerseys it was, as a routine part of its takeover, reviewing Hrmoni's performance and practices to make sure they were safe, met contractual requirements and provided the expected quality of care.Sources described Harmoni data being "cleaned up" by blaming delays on patients not wanting to take appointments many miles from home, or by recategorising them. Local GPs have reported being puzzled by repeated evidence BE1227ZYH that targets were regularly missed, despite reports suggesting all was well.