A POLICY managing celebrity visits to the Alexandra Hospital in Redditch and other county hospitals is to be introduced in a bid stop a repeat of Jimmy Savile-type abuse cases.
Worcestershire Acute NHS Hospitals Trust has agreed to create a set of criteria for famous people visiting any of its sites after a report highlighted the failures within the NHS to protect those who suffered at the hands of Savile.
The document, by former barrister Kate Lampard, highlighted lessons learnt by the health service from allowing the disgraced television presenter to abuse patients over a long period of time.
This included recommendations to trusts across the country such as introducing policies on special visitors, refresher safeguarding coursers for staff and volunteers and reviewing voluntary services.
Savile had open access to a number of hospitals and was frequently unsupervised when in contact with both staff and patients giving him numerous opportunities to carry out abuse.
Because of his celebrity status he was seen as untouchable.
Although Savile is not known to have visited any of Worcestershire’s hospitals, the Trust had already introduced some of the nine policies while others are set to be in place by as early as July this year.
