Dunfermline couple make official complaint to NHS Fife

Karen MacDonald, 60, who is bipolar, said even after she proved it was wrong and that no such thing had happened they "flatly refused" to change her patient notes.

After raising a number of issues about her treatment, an official complaint has been made to NHS Fife.

Karen said: "I don't want people getting sacked or losing their jobs, I just want my notes corrected, the allegations retracted and an apology. That's all I'm asking for."

Her husband John - ironically enough, the nephew of former Prime Minister Clement Atlee who helped inaugurate the NHS - said that because they had challenged "libellous comments", as well as a number of other issues in her mental health care, they had been labelled difficult.

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He told the Press: "This is the culmination of two and a half years of gaslighting by community service managers who backed a claim that when she was assaulted by another patient this had been Karen's 'perception' caused by her 'being emotional'.

"The narrative then became that she makes things up. "These same people then claimed that a statement in her notes from a community nurse stating there was a police warning against Karen was 'indisputable' because 'nurse records are always correct as they are trained and expected to be accurate'!

"Then her consultant falsely accused her of threatening him in a letter.

"Senior managers have seen this and verbally agreed no threat is there yet they still think it acceptable for him to be her consultant and not apologise for three months with the evidence."

John said his wife had been very well treated by mental health professionals in Fife for 17 years but that all changed when Covid hit, experienced consultants retired or left to be replaced by locums and a new management regime began.

He recalled: "It's all changed. There's no understanding, it's just a blame culture. They don't take any responsibility.

"My wife has been falsely accused and libelled in patient records and letters several times in the last two and a half years by consultants, nursing staff and managers."

Sensing a change in the way she was being treated, Karen made an official request to see her medical records, a process which she said should take a month.

She waited a year and was "horrified" when she read them: "It said in my notes that I had received a caution from the police for racism.

"I've never been cautioned by the police and I am definitely not racist - the only people I can't stand are those being abusive to people or animals.

"There was a new consultant. When she told me she was from Bulgaria I said 'Oh, I've never been there before'.

"I don't know what she thought I'd said but she said 'If you say anything bad about my country I will have you charged with racism'.

"I can only assume it came from that doctor."

Karen, who volunteers for the St John Scotland charity, which teaches CPR and is dedicated to saving lives, underwent a PVG check which confirmed she didn't have a police record, there was no note of any caution or indiscretion.

She said: "I wrote to the chief constable and they confirmed they have nothing in their database on me.

"I sent all this to patient records but they did nothing.

"On the back of that, as part of a change in the service, I was transferred to another doctor, who was black.

"My notes said 'Karen is being transferred to Dr A. No statements of racism'.

"When I saw that I was like 'Why would there be?' Why would they put that?

"It seems they can write anything they like in your notes."

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John said: "The police warning didn't exist, it was made up.

"When we challenged it they said 'You can't challenge anything that a nurse has written down when it's clinical opinion'.

"That's not clinical opinion. It's nothing to do with her illness. It's implying Karen is racist when it's not true. It's libellous."

The couple had taken legal advice at the time but did not start any action.

Karen said: "In my notes it said 'She has litigated against the NHS' but I hadn't. Where did they get that from?

"Even if I had what has that got to do with my treatment?

"It also said 'known to patient relations' with the assumption that I make malicious claims without any grounds.

"That's how defensive they became."

John added: "After that they decided that all meetings with Karen must be two-to-one 'because of the way she perceives she has been treated'!"

He said health chiefs had insisted on "punitive procedures that blame her for having challenged the accuracy of their staff" and had, without warning, removed her community nurse, denied her vital medication and taken her off the Care Programme Approach she had been on for 20 years.

John added: "It's corrupt. They have immense power over the patient, especially mental health patients who are confined to hospital, but if you stand up to them they will deny everything and turn it back on the patient."

He said the complaints procedure was "a disgrace" and recalled an incident where a consultant had shouted at them.

"It was right in our faces, he was clearly not well. It was in front of the charge nurse and she recorded that he had slandered Karen.

"If the complaint is about a consultant they put down whatever the consultant says and that's the answer to your complaint. He said everything he did was fine and that was the end of it.

"They didn't even speak to the witness, the charge nurse."

In response to the MacDonald's claims, a spokesperson from Fife Health and Social Care Partnership said: "We do not discuss individuals for reasons of confidentiality."