NHS trust turned to mediation to calm tensions between paediatric urology consultants

Bosses at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital have said that “successful mediation,” an away day, and “constructive conversations” between consultants helped to deal with a “dysfunctional relationship” between two consultant paediatric urology surgeons that had threatened patient safety.

The Great Ormond Street Hospital NHS Foundation Trust asked the Royal College of Surgeons of England to review its paediatric urology surgical service after concerns raised by staff, serious untoward incidents, and outcome data. A review team visited in May last year, and its report, dated last July, was published with the trust’s most recent board papers in November 2019.

The hospital’s paediatric urology service has around 3300 planned NHS admissions a year. It has six consultant surgeons, who the report said were widely reported to be …