By Gabriel Princewill And Victoria Mckeown-
The CEO of Whipps Cross hospital should resign from his post after doctors at his hospital failed a man with heart problems who died after spending a day at the Hospital unchecked.
Ralph Coulbeck is hereby asked to step down from his position in light of the revelations that doctors under his charge failed to act professionally, and have so far escaped accountability for what appears to be a clear case of professional negligence.
The Care Quality Commission have been notified about this publication’s concern in relation to this hospital.
As head of the hospital, Mr.Coulbeck has been found to be in charge of a hospital with shameful failings, where doctors have been caught neglecting their duty with impunity.
Accountability has been found to be lacking at almost every level at this major hospital, even where a man has suffered a heart attack. There have been no suspensions, or resignations, those in authority have simply continued with their lives and offered sugar coated words of sympathy to the family of a man dead hours after neglect.
Mr Coulbeck was contacted through the Barts Health Nhs Trust to explain the shameful incident under his watch, and why no known action had been taken to demonstrate accountability for the tragic death of a patient in their hospital. There was no direct response to that question except a generic statement expressing sympathy to the family and claiming lessons learnt would be shared something which has not already occurred, nearly a year after the death of the man.
Muhammad Tariq, 55, died in the late hours of August 7, 2021, after being admitted with radiating neck pain and heart palpitations at
Mr Tariq was sent to an acute assessment ward, where he remained without being checked by doctors on their day shift until he was found struggling to breathe at around 10pm. He was abandoned for over 15 hours. Despite this major failing, there has been no openly known accountability for the unarguable professional negligence which likely contributed to his death.
. Medics at the London hospital claimed that the eventual demise of the patient to have been inevitable. The inquest heard that doctors fitted a mask ventilator and attempted needle decompression to clear blood which they believed had accumulated around his heart, but he was pronounced dead at 11.16pm that night. He had been left too late.
Eight months after his death, the hospital has failed to explain to this publication why he was neglected all day , and what internal action has been taken to ensure accountability.
At an inquest into Mr Tariq’s death at The Adult College of Barking & Dagenham, assistant coroner Dr Shirley Radcliffe ruled that he died of natural causes linked to heart disease.
However, a senior doctor at the Whipps Cross was at loss for words to explain why Mr Tariq had stayed on the ward all day without being reviewed in-person by a doctor.
Dr Simon Green, clinical director for acute medicine, said: “It isn’t at all clear why the junior doctors didn’t alert Dr Rizvi about the fact that there was a patient that hadn’t been checked.
“My personal practice is to check the list myself and I believe it is now Dr Rizvi’s procedure. Furthermore, it’s normal procedure for the nurses to flag it to us if a patient isn’t being seen.
“Normally there are safeguards against this happening and it really wasn’t possible to work out why none of those happened on this occasion.”
No doctor in the hospital has so far been held accountable for the absence of safeguards on the day in question, and on all accounts, the family have not been compensated for the negligence that potentially led to the death of the ill man.
Giving evidence, on-duty consultant Dr Fareeha Rizvi said she suspected Mr Tariq was suffering from an angina but that most of his tests had come back as “normal”.
She added: “If I had seen him I would have had a very low suspicion of his level of risk, in my past experience these cases are usually very traumatic.
“Mr Tariq was unusual in that when he presented he was quite well, if I had done a CT scan I would have agreed with the plan.”
The hospital escaped any legal consequences because of their argument that timely intervention would have made no difference to his chances of survival- a position that does not mitigate the severity of the negligence by the hospital.
Dr Radcliffe accepted the doctors’ evidence that their professional plan would have been unchanged if they had seen him earlier and that efforts were made to treat him on the evening of his death.
Yet, the credibility of professionals who have fundamentally failed to fulfil their remit is invariably damaged under circumstances like these. Comments made to mitigate an abysmal failing avowedly render them lacking in substance.
Dr Radcliffe said Mr Tariq’s medical records showed he was pre-diabetic, a smoker and had “significant” hypertension.
His cause of death was recorded as hemopericardium, which is an accumulation of blood in part of the heart.
Dr Rina Davison, acting medical director at Whipps Cross Hospital said: “We offer our sincere sympathies to the family of Mr Muhammad Tariq.
“Although the inquest concluded he died of natural causes, we assured the coroner we will share the learnings from this case widely across our hospitals.“
Whipps hospital was unable to explain to this publication what the learnings from this case were, and why after nearly a year, they still haven’t been shared widely across hospitals.
The irresponsible behaviour continues even with a man six feet under.
Ralph began his career on the NHS Management Training Scheme and has worked in the NHS, parliament and government. Before coming to Barts Health, Ralph was previously director of strategy at the NHS Trust Development Authority.
“Ralph has led on a number of key strategic priorities during his time at the Trust, including the successful launch of the East and South East London Pathology Partnership, the ongoing Whipps Cross Redevelopment and our life sciences programme,” Alwen Williams, group chief executive, said when he was originally appointed for this role
“I have every faith that he will take on this role with the upmost professionalism, compassion and diligence”. These nice rhetoric has not been lived up to on this occasion.
Representatives of Whipps Cross hospiptal told The Eye Of Media.Com: ‘Outside of what was discussed at the inquest and what is publicly available we don’t have anything additional to add at this stage”.