Dr Lyons case review criticises 'aggressive' pace
AN 'AGGRESSIVE' pace was taken and insufficient evidence secured when Health and Social Services referred the case of Alderney GP Dr Rory Lyons to the police, a damning independent report has said.
Carried out by the Good Governance Institute, it raises a catalogue of concerns about how the case was handled by the department, including its failure to establish 'objective, properly-documented and auditable evidence base' about the nature and scale of the professional and public safety concerns it sought to address.
Other criticisms include HSSD's failure to contact and involve the relatives of deceased patients. It also speaks of an overall tone of 'siege mentality' in the wake of the Nursing and Midwifery Council findings and drive to overhaul clinical governance and performance.
The report features nine recommendations, including calls for an independent review of the 'prevailing culture' of HSSD, and concludes that the course of events was directly determined by judgements of key senior staff – in several key instances working 'outside due process'.
'Once there was a sense that something serious was happening it became in effect a self-fulfilling prophecy,' it said.
