Another social services failure leads to baby's death

I haven't been able to get this story out of my mind since it was featured on the news the other night:

Health bosses should take responsibility for the murder of a baby by her father, an MP has said.
Jessica Randall was killed when she was 54 days old in 2005 by her father Andrew, who also sexually abused her. He was jailed for life in March 2007.

A report into the death, in Kettering, Northamptonshire, concluded care workers, who visited Jessica 30 times, had failed to identify her as at risk.

Philip Hollobone, MP for Kettering, complained of "lack of accountability".

Northamptonshire Teaching Primary Care Trust confirmed Jessica died after 30 members of staff at Kettering General Hospital and the trust had failed to begin child protection procedures.

I was close to tears as the story unfolded and didn't want to blog until I had calmed down.

I suppose we can never take away the fact that it was the father who committed the crime, but having poured millions of pounds in to social services to protect children we have a right to expect better services. It isn't as if this is the first time this has happened, remember we had a whole Inquiry in to Victoria Climbie's death.
But what really appalled me about the whole thing was the way those responsible stood in front of the country's press and television and gave us platitudes about "learning from mistakes" and "it shouldn't have happened". Fucking right it shouldn't.

Mr Hollobone said: "I think the public will be amazed that the report has concluded that no individual was responsible, but if that is the case then those in charge of the processes, those in charge of the organisations, need to step up and take responsibility.

"All too often these reports blame collective failure but no one's job seems to be on the line and there's a huge problem with the lack of accountability in the way vulnerable children are looked after.

"If it is the case that no one individual care worker was responsible, if that is the case, then it should be the senior managers in charge of the systems and processes who should be taking the rap for the fact that these signs weren't picked up."

WTF is this all about - "no one individual" to blame? Every person who came into contact with that wretched child, or had management responsibility for those who did, should take a long hard look in the mirror and ask themselves why they are still working in any job in social and health services. They may also want to ponder why they aren't in jail for the corporate manslaughter offence that everyone want to foist on the private sector.

Its not as if they need to worry about the law of the land as they recently showed they were capable of taking a new born child away from its mother without bothering with nicities like court orders.

Then we get these platitudes:

Shaun Kelly, safe-guarding manager for NCH - The Children's Charity, said: "Protocols and procedures alone cannot be relied upon. It's essential that staff receive on-going training, management and support, particularly around safe-guarding issues."
..
The hospital said it had now trained its 2,000 staff on how to spot cases of child abuse.

FFS, why are they only training them now? Its 5 Years since the Lamming report was presented to Parliament.

Dr Brendan O'Malley, medical director at the hospital, said: "The report was not a whitewash.

"We looked very carefully at it and we really considered that it was the processes that were remiss."

It was the process to blame was it, well lets jail the process shall we? Listen, you half-wit, processes are written by people and are supposed to be checked by managers. Anyway, what process do you need to look at a battered baby and think "fucking hell, something is seriously wrong here" and do something. As managers you should all be charged with taking money under false pretences because you haven't even paid attention to the Climbie Inquiry recommendations.

And to think it is bastards like these bastards and their cheerleaders in the Guardian and Beeb who fall over themselves to tell me I drink too much, smoke too much and am over weight, using my money. Well, listen to this the fucking lot of you, until you can protect baby's from your own incompetence you should not get a single penny to spend on "health education".