A former NHS manager told an inquiry that he was asked to review and discard thousands of incident reports, some of which documented serious events such as self-harm and assaults on staff. Brian O'Donnell testified that at the end of 2024, he was instructed by a senior staff member to "get these gone," leading him to believe the trust was "panicking" about the reports due to an ongoing investigation.
O'Donnell stated that the reports, which he was asked to process and dispose of, included incidents of self-harm, assaults on staff, and racial abuse. He expressed his initial thought was that the trust was concerned about the inquiry, as no one had previously examined these documents. He recalled the instruction as "We need these gone, we need these processed and we need them gone," rather than a request for thorough investigation and feedback.
He initially closed some of the reports but ceased the practice, telling the inquiry, "I thought, I can't put my name to this and say I've thoroughly investigated it because I haven't." When asked about the fate of the remaining reports, O'Donnell said they remained on his dashboard for an extended period before disappearing, and he doubted they had been properly addressed.
During his testimony, O'Donnell also indicated that he was discouraged from raising issues related to staffing rotas. The inquiry, named after the Lampard family, is examining concerns surrounding the trust's practices.