North East Ambulance Service told to publish 'cover-ups' report by Information Commissioner

Ambulance service bosses have been told to publish a damning report central to allegations of "cover-ups".

The Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has given the North East Ambulance Service (NEAS) NHS Trust until December 8 to publish a document known as the "Interim Audit One Report". This comes after lawyers Leigh Day, who represent families involved, challenged the trust's decision not to publish it, despite a Freedom of Information request.

The report, dated March 20 2020, was written after whistleblowers raised concerns that the trust had altered or witheld documents that should have been sent to coroners in a number of cases where patients died. These include the cases of Andrew Watson, Quinn Evie Milburn-Beadle and Peter Coates..

The trust argued that four exemptions under the Freedom of Information Act meant it did not have to publish this. In an opinion written by the trust's outgoing chief executive Helen Ray, the trust said the report contained information that if public would breach confidence, contain personal details, breach legal professional privilege and be "prejudicial to the effective conduct of public affairs".

The ICO said this is only true to a "limited extent" with regard to the first two criteria - and didn't accept it is the case for the latter two. The ruling said the trust's argument that publishing the report "would inhibit senior leaders at [NEAS] from discussing it candidly" was "irrational". The trust had also asked for its reasoning to be kept private, but the ICO found this "unreasonable".

Audit One is an organisation that provides audit and assurance services, including to NHS bodies. After whistleblowers including Paul Calvert raised concerns that the trust was not sharing information with coroners, Audit One was called in.

The interim report includes details of how coroners were "not being made aware of concerns and/or investigations being carried out by the Trust in a timely fashion" and that a coroner was only finding out about such investigations - in the cases considered - "when they request information".

Reporting of details of the report by ChronicleLive was cited in the ICO's ruling. The ICO did accept that details of a further patient could be redacted.

When whistleblowers first raised the issues publicly in May 2022, NEAS accepted "historical failings" had taken place. NHS England then commissioned Dame Marianne Griffiths to carry out a review of the issue. Dame Marianne found "leadership dysfunction" had contributed to the what happened, and made 15 recommendations for NEAS and three more for the wider NHS.

The ICO ruling found that there was a "strong public interest" in the report being published. The decision states: "Some very serious questions have been raised about decisions that have been made and it is very much in the public interest to understand what has gone on.

"There is a particularly strong public interest in understanding what involvement senior leaders had in those decisions and the actions that they did, or did not, take.. In order to satisfy those legitimate interests, it is necessary, in the Commissioner’s view, to leave the names of senior leaders unredacted. There is no less-intrusive way of achieving the interest."

While reviews have conclusively highlights what problems there were, the question of why this happened has long been oustanding. After Dame Marianne's review, families told ChronicleLive how they felt it remained a "whitewash". That review found "leadership dysfunction" led to NEAS not being as candid as it should have been with the coroner.

The trust has until the end of 30 day period to consider appealing the ICO's decision. In a statement, a spokesperson said: "We have received notification of the decision from the Information Commissioner’s Office and we have a period of one month to give it due consideration. We are still within that period and so we are unable to comment further at this time."