Robert Francis QC - Centre for Public Scrutiny

Common cultural phenomena under stress• Denial of injury• where there is uncertainty as to whether a patient has been trulyharmed by a perceived deficiency in care. Particularly likely to occurwhere the patients were elderly, confused, cannot communicate• Denial of responsibility• where lack of resources hinder appropriate care, “numbing” staff intobelieving nothing can ever be done and lapsing into “fatalisticacquiescence”. Excuse of acting on orders.• Condemning the condemners• We the nurses of Farleigh Hospital, feel strongly that we are now in aposition which leaves us defenceless against, and wide open to, unfaircriticism from people who are inexperienced in the care of subnormalpeople, and who are also hypersensitive and prone to exaggeration.Martin, JP, Hospitals in Trouble (1984); Public inquiry Report page 1369©2013 Robert Francis QC 18