In the case of whistleblowers the rules apparently change as the case may be. Here is from Chapter 11 of the Mental Health Act 1983 –  Visiting patients in hospital

11.2 All patients have a right to maintain contact with family and friends and to be visited, subject to carefully limited exceptions. The Act gives certain people the right to visit patients in private and arrangements must be in place to enable this to happen. Hospital managers have the right, under certain circumstances to restrict or refuse visitors, or require them to leave.

11.7 The Act gives certain people the right to visit patients in private if they wish. This includes second opinion appointed doctors (SOADs), independent doctors or approved clinicians appointed to examine the patient in relation to an application or reference to the Tribunal, people visiting on behalf of the Care Quality Commission (CQC), and independent mental health advocates (IMHAs). These people should be given access to all areas where the patient lives or have access themselves.

11.8 Hospital managers must ensure that such visits can take place in private, if that is what the person concerned wants.

11.11 There are circumstances where hospital managers may restrict visitors, refuse them entry or require them to leave. Managers should have a policy on the circumstances in which visits to patients may be restricted, to which both clinical staff and patients may refer, which should be clearly displayed on the ward.

11.12 There are two principal grounds which could justify the restriction or exclusion of a visitor: clinical grounds and security grounds.

11.13 The decision to prohibit a visit by any person whom the patient has requested to visit or has agreed to see should be regarded as a serious interference with the rights of the patient and a blanket restriction may be considered a breach of their article 8 rights. There may be circumstances when a visitor has to be excluded, but these instances should be exceptional and any decision should be taken only after other means to deal with the problem have been considered and (where appropriate) tried. Any such decision should be fully documented and include the reasons for the exclusion, and it should be made available for independent scrutiny by the CQC or service commissioner, and explained to the patient. Hospital managers should review the effect on the patient of any decision to restrict visits. These policies should be risk-based and not impose blanket restrictions, eg no visitors for the first four weeks after admission.

In the case of Carol Woods who is in a Mental Health Secure Unit in Lancaster – detailed in a previous blog (see October 2019) her visits have been stopped since November and also phone calls are not allowed, then forced injections started in January 2020 and she is of sound mind, there is no psychiatric diagnosis except to try and say that she is delusional. It is a Human Rights issue in Carol’s case and the fact that she is a whistleblower.

Here is a talk from academic Dr. Peter Gøtzsche: Forced Psychiatric Treatment Must be Abolished

Recommended site also http://www.deadlymedicines.dk/ which tells about Dr Gotzsche’s dismissal from Cochrane and the book in his defence – Death of a whistleblower and Cochrane’s moral collapse – available on Amazon

Professor Peter C. Gøtzsche co-founded the Cochrane Collaboration in 1993 and has become one of the most respected academics of his time. His career has exposed malfeasance in the pharmaceutical industry, human clinical trials and drug regulatory agencies, empowering Cochrane to evolve into one of the world’s most trusted scientific institutions. However, in September 2018, he was unceremoniously expelled after what can only be described as a show trial that left the rest of the world wondering what happened.

Here is another whistleblower’s story not related to mental health, which happened in the Lancaster area. In his book Whistle in the Wind: Life, death, detriment and dismissal in the NHS by Peter Duffy a consultant surgeon who fought his case at Manchester Employment Tribunal, he is exposing dangerous practice and coverups in the NHS at the highest level.

Corruption in these institutions is going on. I have also written about John Alexander Paterson who is currently being held in the Mental Health wing of Chelmsford Prison and Adam Mustafa is in a Mental Health Secure Unit incarcerated on Brooklands Ward of Clatterbridge Hospital in Cheshire also on lethal injections without consent.