Hello and welcome to my personal website. Here you will find information about my book, “Hitting Your Head Against a Brick Wall” and other aspects of my professional practice as a Consultant Urological Surgeon working in Surrey.
“Hitting Your Head Against a Brick Wall” describes Michael Swinn's torturous experience of being an NHS whistle-blower and argues powerfully for change. His journey from medical student to Consultant surgeon and head of department is chronicled followed by his struggles to persuade hospital managers to listen to his and his colleagues' serious concerns regarding patient care. By the time he was eventually proved right, much harm had sadly been done to many patients, some of whom tragically died.
A nightmarish, Kafkaesque world is described of seemingly interminable investigations, breathtaking incompetence, subterfuge and bluff by some managers apparently more intent on covering their own backs and limiting corporate reputational damage than protecting patients.
Hitting Your Head Against A Brick Wall forensically dissects and dismantles the system he faced from the local hospital management right up to the GMC and argues persuasively for wholesale change to prevent similar tragic episodes from occurring in the future.
An absolute page turner and utterly compelling, Hitting Your Head Against A Brick Wall highlights the perils of becoming a whistle-blower in the NHS and how the system needs to improve. Essential reading for all hospital doctors and managers.
Professor Stephen Langley MS FRCS, Consultant Urological Surgeon, Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust
Hitting Your Head Against A Brick Wall…. is a "must read" for all medical students to empower them to be advocates for patient safety and speakers of truth to power should they ever find themselves in a similar situation.
Professor Claire Sharpe, Dean of Education, School of Medicine, University of Nottingham
This book is not just about the NHS. There are crucial messages here that must be adopted across all sectors…. Tolerance of toxic behaviour or incompetence destroys culture.
Christopher Brocklesby, new Chief Transformation Officer, Post Office LTD
We owe Mike Swinn a debt of gratitude for his immense integrity and persistence in raising patient safety concerns…. As a former nurse I ask that every NHS service manager, clinician and board member read this book and act on its recommendations. It is sadly too late for our family but the issues he raises are a matter of life and death.
Widow of Patient C
I would like to thank Michael Swinn for sticking his head above the parapet and exposing practices that have no place in a modern sophisticated health service that claims to be the best in the world. We need more like him.
Garth Crooks OBE, former Chairman of the Professional Footballers Association
I have worked as a Consultant Urological Surgeon in Surrey since 2004. At Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust (SASH) my practice encompasses a wide variety of general elective and emergency urology. Since 2013 I have split my time between SASH and the Royal Surrey NHS Foundation Trust where I manage exclusively bladder cancer patients. Please click on the link for further information surreyurologist.co.uk
In the private sector I perform microsurgical vasectomy reversals and have now carried out more than 1000. Please click on the link for further information vasectomyreversal-clinic.co.uk
Partly driven by my interest in the safety of health care provision, I am happy to provide a medicolegal opinion and compile reports. Please contact me via the details on the contact page for more information