Complaints by Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust about the Crawley Observer have not been upheld by the Press Complaints Commission.

The Trust complained that a photographer had taken pictures at the hospital without permission. These were then used with an article headlined Casualty crisis worsens. It also complained about inaccuracies in a story, used in the same edition, headlined Hospital porter tackles gunman which said that staff had criticised security arrangements after porters had restrained a man brandishing an imitation firearm.

The PCC heard that photographs had been taken of a patient and a member of staff in a non-public area – and although the hospital accepted that a member of staff had telephoned the newspaper and asked them to come and take pictures, it said the newspaper should still have asked for permission to take photographs from a responsible executive.

When the photographer was seen by hospital bosses and asked to leave, he did – but the Trust said that publishing the photographs breached Clause 3, about privacy, in the Code of Practice.

The Commission pointed out that the newspaper had not initiated the visit, and it could understand why the Observer felt it had permission to make legitimate enquiries at the hospital after being telephoned by a member of staff.

It did not uphold the complaint about the photographer’s presence at the hospital because it said there was genuine confusion about whether the photographer should have been there or not – and it noted that he had left as soon as he was asked to go. The Commission had not received a complaint from the patient who was photographed so it did not accept that their provacy had been intruded.

Concerning the report about the gunman, the hospital complained that the event had been sensationalised and the hospital’s comments had been edited to make it appear insensitive towards the staff involved.

The newspaper argued that the article was the result of a telephone call to the paper from one of the porters involved in the incident who had voiced his own fears about security. Although the hospital’s statement had been edited, the end result was not misleading, it claimed.

The PCC said it did not feel there were significant inaccuracies in the article to warrant a breach of the Code and said the newspaper was entitled to report the porter’s views on a matter which was clearly in the public interest.

To read the adjudication in full click here

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