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Letters to the Editor
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Statutory Committee
Those who brought proceedings may have a case to answer
From Mr P. Walton, MRPharmS
The Statutory Committee decided that Ghislaine Brant had no
case to answer (PJ, 26 March, p349) and the Council for Healthcare Regulatory
Excellence agreed (PJ, 16 April, p441). But I think that those responsible
for instigating proceedings against Mrs Brant may well have a case to
answer to those of us at the sharp end of practice.
As I see it, the contention that Mrs Brant should have noticed low-strength
usage of diamorphine before 30mg ampoules were used was a non-starter.
The pharmacy I used to own dispensed high quantities of 30mg ampoules
without any lower strengths being used first. The reason for this was
that district nurses would be needed to inject diamorphine, so initial
work-up treatment was with slow-release morphine tablets and not diamorphine
ampoules. Doctors could easily use any dose from 30mg ampoules as needed.
We had one patient on 5g diamorphine per week, so the total usage argument
was nonsense. Also, being charmed by a doctor does not validate the extrapolation
that Mrs Brant was charmed into incompetence.
Any how, the press had its day and for many months Mrs Brant was under
a huge cloud of being held partly responsible for the deaths of hundreds.
She continued to work even as she was vilified in the press. One report
I saw on the internet even mentioned the name of the road where she lives.
Pharmacists now need to ask whether this unfair blame put Mrs Brant in
any personal danger. And there is precedent. There was an incident where
two aircraft collided causing the deaths of many Russian children. The
air traffic controller on duty at the time was proven to have been put
under massive pressure because of systems failures. Even the telephone
did not work. One deranged father sought out the controller and stabbed
him to death in front of his wife. I contend that Mrs Brant was put into
similar personal danger by those responsible for the post-Shipman search
for other people to blame.
I have been to lectures on clinical governance and on the “no or
fair blame” culture in the NHS. While we empower the legal profession
to single out and vilify those of us who do our jobs to the best of our
ability we will have unfair blame. We will, therefore, give excuses to
those who may harm practitioners because they do not understand the balancing
act that all of us have to perform to ensure that people are treated
at all. Every action we undertake is a compromise.
Finally, I wonder how Mrs Brant will go about getting all the unfair
and often factually wrong negative press removed from the internet. She
will not, of course, which means that she will be tainted with this travesty
for a long time to come.
Philip Walton
Manchester
I hope there will be substantial recompense for Ghislaine Brant
From Mr M. Stein, MRPharmS
So the Statutory Committee has decided that Ghislaine Brant has no
case to answer (PJ, 26 March, p349) and the Council for Healthcare Regulatory
Excellence is to take
no further legal action (PJ, 16 April, p441). Quite
right too!
Can any of us even begin to understand the crushing levels of stress,
anguish, anxiety and all the rest that must have been endured by the
long-suffering Mrs Brant for merely carrying out the normal workings
of a pharmacist? It was a nightmare scenario. There was no turning her
back and closing her eyes on her questioners as Shipman did when he was
interrogated by the police, as shown on a television documentary.
There must have been sleepless nights, people whispering behind her (real
or imagined). And all for what? No case to answer.
I sincerely hope that there will be substantial recompense for her and
until such time as that happens then there really is no justice. In the
detailed and finely worded summing up of the inquiry by Lord Fraser of
Carmyllie, QC (ibid, p374) I did not see the word “sorry” appear
once.
Malcolm Stein
Hatfield,
Hertfordshire
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