Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Trust welcomes publication today of the executive summary of the new Serious Case Review, (SCR), into the tragic death of baby Peter.
The new independent chair Mr Graham Badman has done an excellent job in drawing together a rounded look at how health, social services and police worked together in this case and we welcome and endorse all the report’s conclusions.
He says “It is clear from the Serious Case Review that every member of staff in every agency involved with Baby Peter was appropriately qualified, well motivated and wanted to do their best to safeguard him. But his horrifying death could and should have been prevented.
The Serious Case Review says that if doctors, lawyers, police officers and social workers had adopted a more urgent, thorough and challenging approach the case would have been stopped in its tracks at the first serious incident. Baby Peter deserved better from the services that were supposed to protect him. It’s a dreadful tragedy that he did not receive better protection.”
The first serious incident refers to the end of 2006.
The Trust apologised on the day of the verdict in the trial, November 2008, and also issued a further apology and commentary on the publication of the Care Quality Commission report, solely into health, published in May 2009. In the latter case while endorsing the recommendations for action wholeheartedly we have raised some comment on certain of the findings.
Peter should not have suffered and died. As we have consistently said from the beginning, the only true tribute to his memory is doing what we can to build the strongest possible child protection system in the borough. The JAR action plan agreed by all agencies in Haringey has been rated ‘good’ by OFSTED and represents a real commitment by all agencies to achieve a very high standard of child protection in future. We acknowledge that we are not there yet.
Read the entire executive summary
Contact information:
GOSH-ICH Press Office: 020 7239 3125
Email:
Coxs@gosh.nhs.ukFor genuine and urgent out of hours call speak to switchboard on 020 7405 9200
