Binning the bleep

Warning... Marion Shannon says she raised concerns about the bleep system at Tameside Hospital.

Marion blows the whistle on hospital night-time system

A WHISTLEBLOWER from Royton says a bleep system at Tameside Hospital put patients lives at risk.

Marion Shannon, of Connington Close, spent 16 years working in the sales and marketing department at BT before joining the hospital as a project administrator in August, 2008.

But after witnessing the use of a task allocation system called HaNBleep (Hospital at Night system), she raised concerns that its use could lead to confusion and delays in patients getting the care they needed.

She is now at the centre of an employment tribunal after being disciplined for her conduct.

The system is used during the night to allocate tasks, with the benefits reported to be releasing time of staff and ensuring care continuity.

Marion, (55), said: “I thought the equipment had been badly marketed and it wasn’t suitable for night-time use, but I was so far down the pecking order.

“My job was to take minutes at meetings and no-one ever listened to me.

“I used to sit in these meetings and it would drive me nuts thinking they had made a mistake with this system.” The hospital has since stopped using HaNBleep.

The system is to be used to plan care, with the traditional ‘bleep’ system used to call doctors in emergencies by phone to run alongside.

Then Marion heard that there had been an incident in the hospital where care was delayed as staff used the HanBleep log, instead of making an emergency call.

She said: “When I found out there had been an accident I felt so bad, I was in tears. I felt I should have done more, but I had tried and tried.

“I didn’t want to read one day in the paper that someone had died because nobody had raised problems with this unusable system.”

She says she followed internal procedures raising personal concerns with the relevant managers.

In correspondence with MP Michael Meacher, health secretary Andrew Lansley said he had forwarded the concerns to the Medicine and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency.

Tameside Hospital NHS Foundation Trust said they could not comment while the case is continuing, but said it takes allegations about patient safety seriously.

A spokesperson for the trust said: “These have been discussed in detail and addressed during the tribunal and we have also responded to Marion personally.

“We are confident the HaNBleep system introduced for a period in 2009 did not put any patient at risk.

“The system was used alongside the existing hospital bleep system to aid prioritisation of tasks overnight, but was not felt to be appropriate to our needs.

“As with any trial of hospital equipment, we take all the necessary precautions to ensure patients are not put at risk.”

Marion, who is now studying for a law degree at University Campus Oldham, is now awaiting the tribunal result.