Doctors ask Cabinet Office to investigate Jeremy Hunt’s patient deaths comments

Last Updated: October 15, 2015By

Doctors have asked a Whitehall watchdog to investigate Jeremy Hunt’s claim that 11,000 patients a year die after being admitted to hospital at the weekend because too few medics are on duty.

Two doctors, who represent around 3,380 other doctors, have complained to the Cabinet Office about Hunt’s claim, which he is using to justify both imposing a new contract on junior doctors and turning the NHS into a seven-day service.

Their move comes as acute medical doctors, who care for some of the sickest patients in hospital, claim that forcing NHS England’s 53,000 junior doctors to accept inferior terms and conditions would have a catastrophic effect on the NHS by producing the biggest recruitment crisis the service has ever encountered.

In their complaint, Dr Antonio de Marvao and Dr Palak J Trivedi, both academic clinical lecturers, claim the health secretary has breached the ministerial code of conduct by misleading MPs and misrepresenting official statistics through his allegedly misleading use of the 11,000 figure, about which he has been “not accurate or truthful”. Their letter is co-signed by thousands of fellow doctors and medical students.

The statistic has become an important – though disputed – piece of evidence because Hunt has been using it in the House of Commons, interviews and Department of Health responses to media inquiries about the junior doctors dispute.

Source: Doctors ask Cabinet Office to investigate Jeremy Hunt’s patient deaths comments | Politics | The Guardian

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8 Comments

  1. Michael Broadhurst October 15, 2015 at 10:58 pm - Reply

    if he’s that concerned about deaths.he wants to ask Dr Death about deaths under his department’s policies.
    two faced f***ing govt.

  2. Nick October 15, 2015 at 11:39 pm - Reply

    That was a false comment by Jeremy Hunt and he needs to say who gave him that figure as no hospital doctor would work in a hospital that was performing that badly

  3. Ram K Padmanaban October 16, 2015 at 8:57 am - Reply

    If Hunt was using the stats to his own purpose, Do they produce contradicting theory as evidence. I am all for the investigation, let’s put him in Jail, but this gives Hunt to escape through th loop holes.

  4. Ram K Padmanaban October 16, 2015 at 9:20 am - Reply

    http://sticerd.lse.ac.uk/dps/case/spcc/RR04_SUMMARY.pdf

    found this study on the comments section.

  5. Dez October 16, 2015 at 10:37 am - Reply

    I think that is a very reasonable question for Germy Hunt to clarify. Just over 200 patients die every week end over the whole of the UK as a direct result of weekend admissions sounds like privatisation fiction. Is this 200+ in addition to the normally expected daily deaths whilst hospitals are fully staffed…..really struggling to buy that
    figment of some civil servants imagination. Why wouldn’t that Hunt double check that sort of data before mouthing it off to the world to ensure it gave a true picture of the real on the ground situation……certainly should be sacked if this data is found wanting as he is obviously not fit for any purpose.

  6. David Bacon October 16, 2015 at 10:57 am - Reply

    So, this is just Jeremy Mispronounced name up to his old tricks. Remember, too, he’s a shameless Murdoch man.

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