Tag Archives: baby p

Baby Peter – Haringey even worse than we thought!

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The Ofsted Report on Haringey Council’s progress on child protection since the fall out after Baby P and since the installation of a new Director of Children’s Services was published this morning.

It makes miserable reading as the key findings are that the situation in Haringey Child Protection was even worse than we thought with a 400 case backlog. Either Haringey didn’t know how bad they were or they were hiding how bad they were – either way a terrifying prospect.

The report states: ‘Significant shortcomings remain which means that children and young people in Haringey are not yet consistently safeguarded.’

And goes onto say: ‘The Council has made limited progress overall in addressing the areas of weakness identified in the November 2008 joint area review … Capacity to improve within the Council and across the partnership is limited overall.’

Whilst the report rightly recognises the efforts that have been made by staff to improve the service and safeguard the borough’s children, the main message is that children and young people are still not safe and that progress is limited and the capacity to improve that situation is also rubbish.

Peter Lewis (new Director on very high salary) said it would take him three years to really turn Haringey around. However, this report would seem to indicate that he is not track – or at least a fast enough track – to do so.

I will be seeking a meeting with him – to find out why there has been such slow progress and what the issues are. Certainly there is a shortage of social workers – and they are not rushing to Haringey to help.

But I have to say if things don’t speed up in the next six months maximum – then Ed Balls is going to have to put Haringey into special measures. We cannot continue with our children not being safeguarded properly.

Great Ormond Street Hospital – senior management must take responsibility over Baby Peter

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So – Dr Al-Sayyat – the doctor who famously failed to diagnose Baby Peter’s broken back and broken ribs – is suing Great Ormond Street Hospital over her dismissal.

For all the criticism over her behaviour, that shouldn’t let Great Ormond Street off the hook. As far as I can tell Great Ormond Street’s management has a lot of responsibility for the hospital’s failings during the Baby P tragedy.

Yes, it was Dr Al-Sayyat who saw Baby Peter, failed to spot major injuries and was then dismissed following an investigation. But just as with Sharon Shoesmith – who wasn’t the actual front social worker visiting the house but paid the proper price for overseeing a system that failed so badly – so the senior people in charge at Great Ormond Street should have to take responsibility for a system that failed so badly.

Jane Collins (CEO), Dr Elliman (designated safeguarding doctor) and Jane Elias (senior management) are the key people at Great Ormond Street, who are commissioned by Haringey Primary Care Trust (PCT) to be responsible for running the children’s health service for Haringey.

The Evening Standard recently published a damning letter from four senior paediatricians to Elliman and Elias over desperately serious concerns about the safety of children at risk in the borough. Moreover, they say in their letter that their concerns are being ignored by management. And when the letter was published – Jane Collins went on TV and rather than facing up to the issue and taking action, she dodged around.

So – there is still a job to be done to ensure that the senior management at Great Ormond Street are properly held to account.

Between 2006 and 2008 out of four senior paediatricians, two resigned, one was off sick and one was on special leave. That left the staffing at Great Ormond Street’s services to Haringey’s children at danger level. And I only got those figures after digging and digging to find out why it was a locum doctor – Dr Al-Sayyat – who had looked at Baby Peter.

Those responsible for there being dangerously low staffing levels in such a vital service need to pay the same price as those in Haringey Council did for their part in Baby Peter’s tragic death.

Baby P sentencing up for review

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So – good! The Attorney General, Baroness Scotland, is going to take a look at the sentencing for the Baby P case – and may then lodge an appeal over them being too lenient.

With an ‘indeterminate’ sentence – it does mean that it could be forever. But with the minimum sentence length given out, it could mean – say – that the mother would be out in five years – which would be a travesty of justice. Once she or the others have served their minimum sentence, it’s up to the Parole Board to decide whether to release any of them at any point in time – but just because we have that safeguard doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be minimum lengths of sentence which they will definitely serve and which reflect the horror of what happened.

Baby P – sentences handed out

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So – sentences have now been handed out following the trial over the death of Baby P.

This coincided with the publication of the second Serious Case Review which finally lays bare the litany of failures by every agency involved and by all the individuals who did not do their job properly.

What is so shocking is that virtually no-one did what I am sure the people would expect when a child is on the at risk register.

As to the future. Well, Haringey (who issued a statement then bunkered down not willing to face the media – which doesn’t bode well for a change in attitude) would like this to draw a line under the whole sorry story. But there should be no lines drawn. That is what they did after Victoria Climbie when they promised this would never happen again and that lessons had been learned – when clearly they hadn’t.

If Haringey Council doesn’t change its rotten culture of secrecy, cover-ups and acceptance of inadequate performance – then there can be no assurance that a few years down the line another vulnerable child will not suffer again as those meant to protect them fail to do their jobs properly.

Great Ormond Street failed Baby P too!

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When I found out that the last doctor to see Baby Peter failed to recognise a broken back and ribs – like the rest of the nation I thought she must be a terrible doctor. And she clearly was. However, I also read that she was a locum – and ever since then I have been digging and digging to find out why there was a locum and what lay beneath.

I found out. And whilst I have no doubt that Haringey Labour Council and Sharon Shoesmith were first in line for retribution being the lead agency and lead individual – I have also had no doubt that there were other agencies who were just as bad.

There was a locum because the consultant pediatricians, four of them, in the children’s health department in Haringey (commissioned by Haringey PCT and run by Great Ormond Street – GOSH) had either left, been off permanently sick or on special leave! On digging I found that these doctors had raised their concerns with GOSH and been ignored. Yet again – management taking no notice of dangers being flagged up by professionals – just as the police and a senior social worker at Haringey raised concerns that Baby P should be taken away from the family.

I raised it on my blog. I got Norman Lamb (Lib Dem Health Spokesperson) to raise it in a health debate. I raised it myself in a speech in the chamber. But it is only now that investigative journalist for the Evening Standard, Andrew Gilligan, has found out the real detail of the story and broken it in the paper that the part that GOSH and Haringey PCT played in Baby P’s death is coming to light. He actually has a copy of the letter to the management at GOSH saying that they don’t believe the management has taken their concerns seriously and listing the reasons that children’s lives were at risk.

And yesterday – the Health Care Commission report into Baby P’s death also came out with findings that make it clear that there were systemic and individual failings in GOSH and the Health Trusts – all scandalous stuff.

What has been going on in children’s health in Haringey is practically a mirror image of what was going on in Haringey Council, Children’s Services and the Safeguarding Board.

I hope that this now all comes to light and that equally drastic and appropriate action is taken.

Needless to say – I will be writing to Ed Balls in this regard.

Haringey's lies exposed!

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So – Haringey Council knew that Baby P’s mother had a boyfriend – in fact they had a video of her talking about him. And there was a record in the case notes. And yet when asked during the furore of the first trial – as ever – they denied that they knew that he was living there . Just when we think this horrific tragedy will have bottomed out – and there surely can’t be any more shocking revelations of Haringey’s incompetence and lies – we find out there are.

Panorama revealed the existence of this video interview with Baby Peter’s mother last night – a video made by a senior social worker.

Yet another reason why we still need a public inquiry. So far, the spotlight has more or less remained on the Children’s Services department at Haringey – but given how much is still surfacing – just imagine what lies beneath in terms of how Haringey is working (or not working).

There has been no real examination of the gagging clauses that prohibit staff who leave from speaking about their former department. There has been no examination of Haringey’s arrogance in its failure to listen to whistle blowers, the family or opposition politicians – all who raised real concerns about child protection in Haringey. There has been no examination of the budgetary issues that gave rise to a reported memo instructing the department not to take more children into care. There has been scant attention to Ofsted finding Haringey ‘good’ when it wanted to make them look good – and then ‘bad’ when heads had to roll. (Panorama did at least touch on this – possibly because when I did an extensive background briefing for them I emphasised the lack of scrutiny of their role). The health team has thus far got off virtually unscathed – with its management bullying unquestioned – even though there was a locum doctor who failed to recognise a broken back and ribs. Why was there a locum? Why had all the paediatrician’s left in the previous two years? And so o and so on………

Without a public inquiry – much of what went wrong will stay wrong. Moreover – allowed to fester under the radar – the culture which was the rotten bottom of what goes on at Haringey will remain.

Latest Haringey tragedy shows why we need a public inquiry

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Busy Saturday morning, so here’s the story from The Times about the latest heart-wrenching news from Haringey,

The failings of social workers at Haringey Council have again been exposed in a criminal trial.

The local authority, which is still reeling from the criticism it received after its failing in the Baby P case, confirmed the two-year-old rape victim was known to social workers and was on its “at risk” register.

Officials at the North London borough said last night that a Serious Case Review was under way into how the girl could have been raped while in their care…

The Serious Case Review into the care the child received from social workers is being conducted by Graham Badman, chair of the Haringey Local Safeguarding Children Board.

But Lynne Featherstone, Liberal Democrat MP for Hornsey and Wood Green, said that more questions about the performance of the council needed to be answered. “We desperately need a public inquiry to get to the bottom of this,” she said.