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Top Doc in Locum Slur Outrage
Ironically, Dr Prabhu, who first qualified as a doctor in India in 1981, is currently the North West Regional Clinical Director of NHS Professionals, the in-house NHS locum agency. According to the careers section of the NHS website, "NHS Professionals works in partnership with NHS employers to create an effective, friendly staffing service for healthcare professionals, scientists and technicians." It remains to be seen whether locums working for NHS Professionals in the North West will find Dr Prabhu's comments to be either friendly or effective. However, it seems unlikely that those from ethnic minorities will be overjoyed to read that, according to Dr Prabhu, they are in need of extra training and help with their careers, and are, by implication, currently providing substandard treatment to their patients. When NHS Exposed wrote to Dr Prabhu concerning his controversial comments he said, somewhat cryptically, "All one can do is be true to once conscious." This response left at least one senior locum doctor asking, "Do spelling and comprehension count as part of your CPDs these days?" Dr Prahbu went on to say, "Of course there are some journalists who take things out of context to sell the paper rather than to print the truth!" Dr Prabhu went on to tell NHS Exposed, in his own words, "This is in fact what I had said - Locums provide a very good service to the NHS, without which it will collapse. They have been used and abused by the NHS we got to help them, support them and look after them. Most of these doctors do locums here and there and have no one to support and they do not do CMEs as they are not supported by the system and some of them do pose risk to our patients. It is our duty to support them and look after them and NHS Professionals is ideally placed to provide this service." It was unclear at the time of writing as to whether Dr Prabhu's explanation will quell the mounting anger following his comments in Hospital Doctor, but it seems likely that locum doctors will be further enraged by his suggestion that some of them pose a risk to patients. A spokesman for the pressure group Doctors For Justice said of Dr Prabhu's comments, "The majority of locum doctors (who are not registered with NHS Professionals), would disagree," adding, "It is NHS Professionals which is undermining locums' working and earning life, more than anything else." Dr Prabhu's comments are all the more astonishing in light of his role as "Mentor for Overseas Doctors" at the University of Manchester's Department of Postgraduate Medicine and Dentistry, and his position as a consultant paediatrician at Fairfield General Hospital, Bury. Despite his busy schedule, Dr Prabhu is also an outspoken contributor to a number medical discussion groups on the internet, including the British Medical Journal's website. Dr Prabhu is apparently happy to dispense his own brand of support to any doctor who wishes to contact him, although NHS Exposed makes no warranty as to the validity, or lack thereof, of Dr Prabhu's advice. Nevertheless, for those who would seek is input, Dr Prahbu's email address is Umesh.Prabhu@pat.nhs.uk. In a recent posting to the BMJ, discussing the ease with which mistakes can be made in the clinical environment, Dr Prabhu said, on the 4th February 2004, "We all make mistakes. There is no evidence at all to say that doctors make more mistakes than pharmacist and vice versa. Every human being makes mistake once in a while. If I would have been a lawyer and pick a wrong file then I would probably make more money but the fact that I am a doctor and if I pick a wrong syringe then very rarely I may end up killing the patient! Of course we all must be accountable there is no question about it but we should not get confused accountability with discipline." NHS Exposed agrees - discipline and accountability are vital for a doctor in Dr Prabhu's position. Time will tell whether Dr Prabhu will come to consider his insulting comments in Hospital Doctor to have been a mistake, and, if he does, whether he will have the discipline to be held accountable for them. Resources NHS Professionals web site
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Fury
gripped the UK's locum doctor community this week after a prominent
senior medic described locums as having no friends, a family life in
tatters and never having a proper relationship with anybody. The
comments, made by Dr Umesh Prabhu, have provoked a storm of protest.
One senior locum consultant, who asked not to be named but is happily
married with several children and an extensive social circle, said
they were "absolutely furious" after reading Dr Prabhu's
remarks in the 3rd June 2004 issue of Hospital Doctor.
