The Royal Sussex County Hospital is an acute teaching hospital in Brighton, East Sussex. It is part of the University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust.
The hospital and trust are well known for scandal, controversy, medical negligence. It has also been accused of bullying whistle-blowers and turning a blind eye to serious complaints about nursing staff.
Gang culture at neurosurgery department, doctor alleges.
Neurosurgeon Mansoor Foroughi is one of two surgeons who alleges patients were put at risk at University Hospitals Sussex, where police are investigating 105 cases of alleged medical negligence.
BBC News 12th April 2024
Royal Sussex County Hospital CQC Inspection
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is the independent regulator of health and adult social care in England.
The CQC make sure health and social care services provide people with safe, effective, compassionate, high-quality care and we encourage care services to improve.
The CQC monitor, inspect and regulate services and publish what we find. Where we find poor care, we will use our powers to take action.
- Safe – Requires improvement
- Effective – Requires improvement
- Caring – Outstanding
- Responsive – Requires improvement
- Well-led – Requires improvement
Full CQC inspection report for Royal Sussex County Hospital
Date of inspection visit: 1st to 3rd August 2023 / Published 14th February 2024
‘Let down by a culture of fear’
The NHS Trust that runs hospitals in Sussex has been stripped of its ‘outstanding’ status by its health watchdog and has been downgraded to ‘requires improvement’.
The Care Quality Commission sent in inspectors after whistleblowing concerns were raised by staff themselves.
There are changes, too, for individual hospitals with Brighton’s Royal Sussex County going from ‘good’ to ‘inadequate’ and the Princess Royal at Haywards Heath going from ‘good’ to ‘requires improvement’.
Inspectors said staff and patients were “being let down” by senior leaders who appeared “out of touch” with what was happening on wards and in clinical areas.
And staff who felt bullied or harassed felt pressured into “making unsafe decisions” amid a culture of fear.
ITVx
Care Quality Commission (CQC) and Bullying
Royal Sussex County Hospital bosses told to make urgent improvements.
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) said that the culture in surgery theatres at the Royal Sussex County Hospital was “still poor” and that staff did not feel they could raise concerns without “fear of reprisals”.
The unannounced visit last August found an “improving” culture on the wards where staff felt respected and supported but inspectors also heard examples of bullying in the surgery unit from 30 members of staff.
CQC bosses said that improvements had been made in some aspects of surgery at the hospital since inspections in 2021 and 2022, resulting in the rating of the unit being raised from “inadequate” to “requires improvement”.
The findings come as a review commissioned by University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust, which runs the hospital, reported instances of bullying and harassment and a “culture of fear” regarding the top leadership team earlier this month.
Brighton and Hove News
Medical Negligence
Police are investigating 105 cases of alleged medical negligence at the Royal Sussex County Hospital in Brighton amid claims of a cover-up.
Specialist officers from the National Crime Agency and Sussex police are looking into cases of harm, which include at least 40 deaths, in the general surgery and neurosurgery departments between 2015 and 2021.
An email from Sussex police, released to The Times after a court application, revealed the huge investigation is looking into 84 cases connected to neurology and 21 related to gastroenterology. Most of the families are yet to be told that their case is among them.
Officers were called in by the senior coroner after she heard of allegations made by two consultant surgeons at University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust, one of the largest NHS organisations with 20,000 staff.
The trust has been accused of bullying the whistleblowers and attempting to cover up the circumstances of the deaths.
Mansoor Foroughi, a consultant neurosurgeon, was sacked for “acting in bad faith” in December 2021 after raising concerns about 19 deaths and 23 cases of serious patient harm.
Another whistleblower, Krishna Singh, a consultant general surgeon, claimed that he lost his post as clinical director because he said the trust promoted insufficiently competent surgeons, introduced an unsafe rota and had cut costs too quickly.
The Times 27th November 2023
Transgender Breast Milk
An NHS trust has claimed that breast milk from transgender women is just as good as that produced by a mother who has given birth.
The Telegraph reported that a leaked letter from a University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust medical director said milk produced by trans-women, with the help of drugs, is “comparable to that produced following the birth of a baby”.
The hospital became the first to use the gender-inclusive terms “chestfeeding” and “human milk” for its perinatal services in 2021. It created what it called the “first clinical and language guidelines supporting trans and non-binary birthing people”.
The Standard – University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust guidance attracts criticism from campaigners after being leaked in letter
Trust headquarters
University Hospitals Sussex NHS Foundation Trust, Worthing Hospital, Lyndhurst Road, Worthing, West Sussex, BN11 2DH
Switchboard : +44 (0)1903 205111
We recommend you should always seek formal legal advice if required, from a qualified and reputable lawyer (solicitor or barrister).
We have a number of links to Free Legal Resources and Legal Organisations on our Free Legal Advice, Legal Aid and Pro Bono pages.
Check out our articles on Sussex Police, HHJ Farquhar, HHJ Bedford and the highly questionable Sussex Family Justice Board.
Read the reviews of Sussex Barrister Gavin Howe
“He is awful, underhanded and should not be practising law!”
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