Two junior clerical workers say they told NHS managers that they were being ordered to falsify data, so that it seemed that patients were being treated far more quickly than was the case.
Police are considering whether to launch a criminal investigation after regulators the Care Quality Commission (CQC) found evidence that staff were put under pressure to falsify data, leaving some patients waiting up to four months for urgent treatment.
The chief inspector of hospitals has said lives may have been risked by “shocking” decisions taken at Colchester Hospital University Foundation trust to delay crucial treatment for cancer patients, while allegedly manipulating waiting list records to hide the truth.
An NHS review is now examine the records of all cancer patients treated by the trust in the past three years to see how many people may have been affected.
Last night the widow of one patient who died of cancer last year, aged 43, after being denied vital scans and treatment for months, said she was left “crying down the phone” to medical staff, pleading for them to treat her husband.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
