My name is Dr Rita Pal. I am the whistleblower for Ward 87 City General Hospital, North Staffordshire NHS Trust Stoke on Trent.  I raised concerns regarding the current government policies of underfunding and rationing resulting in a serious risk to patient safety. This website has been created to host all the evidence and documents. Ward 87 is one ward in the National Health Service UK. There are many wards like it. The evidence on this website should show all UK doctors that it is unsafe to whistleblow because there are no safety mechanisms in place to protect the doctor. Moreover, the medical code of silence continues. This website is dedicated to all those who died needlessly. Their families were never informed by the Trust or the authorities in power. No death rate was ever recorded by the hospital. The Department of Health has since confirmed that there is no regulation that makes it compulsory to record death rates on wards.

I also have a blog dedicated to whistleblowing issues called Ward 87, The Forgotten Grave of North Staffordshire NHS Trust 

Please feel free to make any suggestions by emailing me
In summary, my concerns were as follows 

a) Lack of basic equipment such as drip sets
b) Lack of adequate support for junior doctors
c) Lack of basic care for patients
d) Repeated DNR [Do not Resuscitate] notices
e) Gross shortage in staffing levels. 

A quick You Tube summary can be viewed here

The concerns were reported internally and externally. At each stage, external organisations were unwilling to take the concerns seriously. This is detailed in the summary here. 

 I raised the issues with the Sunday Times 2nd April 2000. One of the conditions of publication was to raise the issues with the General Medical Council. I did so. Unfortunately, the General Medical Council immediately reversed the investigation onto me.  In 2003, I found out that the GMC had been conducting a secret covert "discreet" inquiry into my apparent mental health. During this period, I was working as a locum psychiatrist in the NHS. I subsequently litigated successfully against the GMC. During the various issues I raised with the GMC, I discovered two internal Trust reports that verified my concerns [dated 1999 and 2001] in 2005.

The summary of the 2001 Creamer Report concealed by the GMC stated as follows 

(a) “Patient care was clearly affected by the failures identified”;
(b) “The Directorate failed to take appropriate action when the allegations were made in a statement by Dr Pal”;
(c) “Although medical and nursing staff were concerned about the range of issues...no one voiced their concerns except Dr Pal which either demonstrated a general acceptance of the issues or staff felt unable to raise concerns”.

No member of the Trust management, no medical senior or nursing staff has been held accountable for the poor standard of care that continued before me and after me. The ward finally shut down in 2005. In the interim, the General Medical Council has subjected me to no less than 3 investigations on material I have written on the internet. I have been cleared of all of them. The last investigation in 2007, resulted in the loss of my job and my references. The GMC currently takes no responsibility for their conduct. 

The court transcript from the case of PAL vs GMC, May 2004 before Judge Charles Harris is of interest

JUDGE HARRIS: For myself I don't really see why somebody complaining about the behaviour of doctors or the GMC, if that is what they are doing, why that should raise a question about their mental stability, unless anybody who wishes to criticise "the party" is automatically showing themselves to be mentally unstable because they don't agree with the point of view put forward on behalf of the GMC or the party.

MISS COLLIER: That in itself certainly would not be enough.

JUDGE HARRIS: It is like a totalitarian regime: anybody who criticises it is said to be prima facie mentally ill - what used to happen in Russia.

MISS COLLIER: My Lord, that is very far from the circumstances of this case.

JUDGE HARRIS: Of course it is ...