Dear Katrina Percy,

I was surprised to read your post at the NHS Leadership Academy – Leadership when the going gets tough – yesterday. Much of this post says little (with the customary dose of self promotion) but one section stood out;

So what have I learnt about leading when the going gets tough? Firstly, openness and transparency are fundamental when things go wrong.

I have to say the #justiceforLB shed heaved a sigh of relief reading this. (Virtually, as George remains ‘lost in action’ around wondrous Swedish lakes, and I was at home trying to ignore random pizza making involving hot dog crusts and melted grease proof paper).

A long old battle and all, but we’ve always prided ourselves on being reasonable and rational (as well as open and transparent). So, in the spirit of openness and transparency, and in no particular order, could you please respond to the following:

  • Can you explain why you did nothing about the state of the unit between LB’s death in July and the CQC inspection in September?
  • Can you explain why patients were not offered support to help them come to terms with LB’s death in the unit when staff were?
  • Can you explain what the phrase ‘Mum is known to the Trust’ means and why it was used in your SIRI documentation?
  • Can you provide a more convincing explanation of why your board minutes stated LB died of natural causes and all due process were followed, when he didn’t and they clearly weren’t?
  • Can you let us know what the situation is with staff disciplinary actions and whether you intend to refer any staff to their disciplinary bodies?
  • Can you explain why the process of staff disciplinary actions has taken over 14 months so far?
  • Can you explain why we had to fight so hard to get the final copy of the independent report into LB’s death published?
  • Can you un-redact and re-send the large set of blacked out documentation received as access to records requests?
  • Can you explain why you felt it necessary to construct a trolling/hacking issue around your employees twitter accounts and attribute this to me in a veiled statement to Monitor?
  • Can you provide evidence of the alleged account hacking of your staff?
  • Can you explain why you circulated an edited version of Trust communications/interactions with us to your Board members (and wider) which omitted a whole series of interactions, including those around bullying and sacking our advocate?
  • Can you provide a more convincing explanation for not disclosing the full set of LB’s records before February 2014 despite repeated requests by our solicitor from July 2013 onwards?
  • Can you explain the discrepancies between the minutes of Community Team Meetings we received and the set eventually received as part of the disclosure of records?
  • Can you explain how an independent investigation into deaths in your learning disability/mental health provision, commissioned by David Nicholson, was apparently concluded in June (according to your board minutes) when it hasn’t yet started?
  • Can you confirm that the ‘bath ban’ has been lifted at John Sharich House?
  • And finally, can you explain why you closely surveil our social media activity and yet listen to nothing that is said?

I look forward to hearing from you.



31 thoughts on “Dear Katrina Percy,

  1. Way too many questions left unanswered Sara .Absolutely sickening and devastating .Again why is this person still getting salary???? …she should be doing community service at the very least …A disgrace the whole thing .So sorry ….

  2. Hi Sara,

    How can this list be possibly dodged when it is now in the “oh-so-public and we aren’t going anywhere without answers” domain?

    So many of us are anchored alongside you,bobbing up and down. The LB flotilla!

    V x

    Sent from my iPhone Co-Director Inclusion East CIC


  3. Great challenge – detailed, absolutely focussed and shocking to think much of your questioning is about such significant matters. Let’s see some honesty at last ….. we are a civilised society aren’t we? This is really sending me crazy with anger…

    • Sara cock-ups you can usually forgive, but cover-ups are never forgiveable. They destroy the people being lied too and they eventually destroy the people who are doing the lying.

  4. These questions should pose no problem for an Award Winning Leading Chief Executive.Honestly. In writing. For all to see and read.

  5. I wonder if it would occur to her that other people might adopt “Keep the faith” as a slogan as well? And that their faith might be in something more substantial than management speak? Like, for instance, the value of a human life, the need for proper accountability?

    If she won’t answer these questions, as opposed to brushing them aside as irrelevant, then she, and those like her, should step aside. Answer them publicly, and honestly, not as some personal, arrogant attempt at damage limitation.

  6. how many avoidable deaths would make it OK to be angry? Nobody is going to be happy if the wrong things are happening, or the wrong people are being blamed as a response. Family carers can tell the difference between a decent carer and an indifferent one, and are usually very appreciative. We should be, and often are, on the same side.

    • I agree.. there are some staff at who clearly care. And some who clearly don’t. And some who should never be allowed near patients. STATT had a mix of these, like many places, I’m sure.

      • Why are parents shut out? I don’t think it is an assumption that we don;t “care”. It seems more to be that our caring is inappropriate, counter-productive, not enough. Maybe it is, occasionally, but maybe also we know that “caring” in one of it’s senses isn’t enough. You also need experience and a level of committment that isn’t always that easy. Personally, I don’t always expect that from people who don’t know my daughter well, immediately, automatically. But carers who can’t make eye contact, and ignore what I tell them, are happier with the theory than the practice …well, my expression is “Wouldn’t ask them to mind a cat.” It takes more than good intentions, and your post did not express disappointment well. Implying that there is anything vindictive or personal in this post/campaign does you no favours. If you care well, thank you. People will appreciate it. Hard to appreciate Katrina Percy’s conception of “caring”.

  7. Pingback: The Sloven Dept of Managing Catastrophic Incidents | mydaftlife

  8. Pingback: Impersonal correspondence: paras 1-3 #nhssm | George Blogs

  9. Pingback: Impersonal correspondence: paras 4-6 #nhssm | George Blogs

  10. Pingback: Impersonal correspondance: paras 7-9 #nhssm | George Blogs

  11. Pingback: Impersonal correspondence: 10-15 #nhssm | George Blogs

  12. Pingback: Private troubles | mydaftlife

  13. Pingback: Saturday Evening Posts Worth Reading and the 25-Hour News.

  14. Pingback: Playing real good for free… | mydaftlife

  15. Pingback: Fun and photies | mydaftlife

  16. Pingback: Simply not good enough | mydaftlife

  17. Pingback: Waugh? What is it good for? Absolutely nothing | mydaftlife

  18. Saw this woman on TV last night (17th Dec ’15) and the same thought crossed my mind. How does she keep her job? Why has she not been sacked for negligence and incompetence.? We live in a strange world when a Premiership football manager takes the rap for his players’ inability to kick a ball straight, but someone with the responsibility that Katrina Percy still somehow has literally gets away with it.
    Only in this country and only in the NEW.

Leave a Reply to lesH Cancel reply


You are commenting using your account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Connecting to %s
