Sharon Shoesmith speaks to BBC Radio 4

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Permalink Reply by james walsh on February 8, 2009 at 0:25

thanks for putting me strait alan.

(it's so very hard not to get emotional and upset).
so what DID happen about that A&E doctor that failed to notice a broken arm/ribs etc ?

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Permalink Reply by John D on February 8, 2009 at 7:46

Still suspended by GMC, as far as I know, pending hearing.

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Permalink Reply by Birdy_Too on February 8, 2009 at 8:38

I am still waiting for the media witch hunt and petition to start after the awful events in South Yorkshire, one of many nationally:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/south_yorkshire/7747711.stm

As much as I can't stand the site of Shoesmith and detest her resilience in accepting any responsibility, the Neanderthal actions of the red tops and some of the public is shameful.

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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on February 9, 2009 at 18:44

THE Controller of Radio 4, Mark Damazer, comments in the Radio 4 Blog on the running of the SS interview.

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Permalink Reply by Chris Smith on February 12, 2009 at 2:48

I work in supported housing for people with mental health problems (nothing to do with Social Services) and we are mainly funded by a Government body called Supporting People. The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister has the main responsibility for the Supporting People programme. It allocates a Supporting People grant to Administering Authorities and monitors their performances. This monitoring carries with it the threat that funding may be withdrawn if we are not spending the money wisely.

Over the past few years I have become more and more frustrated by the increasing amount of monitoring we have to do. This takes up a great deal of our time. Of course, we have to account for where the money is spent but it takes away time I would prefer to be spending with my tenants doing what I signed up for in the first place .... supporting them!

Monitoring and reporting seems to consist of duplication and enormous amounts of paperwork that could be streamlined and carried out on the computer. Were the monitoring forms accessed through an appropriate database system, information could be collated and collected quickly and easily without the need to duplicate. I always believed the computer would create a paperless office. Far from it!!! We have more paperwork now than you could shake a stick at. I often have to enter the same information in more than one file, email a report to someone and then print it out so it can be filed as a 'hard copy'!

We work in collaboration with other agencies, such as the Mental Health Service. Cutbacks in funding and having to reach Government targets also means they are stretched to breaking point and the service they are supposed to deliver suffers as a result. This means people do not always receive the best service as one might expect. A patient can be given weekend home leave only to return on Monday to find their bed has been given to someone else.

While I do not condone or defend anything Sharon Shoesmith has said, I can imagine Social Services are also required to carry out an excessive amount of monitoring (being a Government funded body), taking away valuable time that could be spent in the field. When pressures are applied in one area, other areas suffer adversely.

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