In February 2010, newspapers reported that a senior NHS manager had been sacked for ‘swearing too much’ in meetings. Gary Walker, who had been credited with bringing Lincolnshire’s NHS trust back from the brink of overwhelming debt, had lost his £165,000 a year job after what The Daily Mail referred to as ‘four letter rants’.
But this morning, the Today Programme uncovered a darker side to the story of Gary Walker’s dismissal. An investigation by BBC reporter Andrew Hosken revealed that Walker had agreed to a £320,000 settlement linked to a gagging clause so secret that he is forbidden from even discussing its existence. This was not about swearing at work; at the time of his dismissal, Walker had used whistleblowing legislation to make a disclosure about concerns over patient safety.
David Bowles, the former chairman of Lincolnshire NHS trust, and someone who worked closely with Walker for three years, believes that the official reason for Walker’s dismissal – swearing – was an excuse to get rid of someone who was causing headaches for management, by refusing to submit to government targets that he believed were jeopardising patient safety. Bowles calls the secrecy clause a ‘supergag’ and claims that, added to legal costs, the settlement would have cost the taxpayer at least £500,000.
Although the gagging order meant Walker was unable to discuss his concerns with the Today Programme, his colleague Bowles, who quit his job in 2009 in disgust at the government’s non-emergency targets, believes their concerns were substantially the same. ‘Fundamentally the dispute was about safe care…. You can either treat your emergency patients safely and delay your non-emergency patients, or you give priority to the non-emergency patients to meet the target and then the emergency patients suffer.’
It was the dangerous pursuit of these non-emergency targets that was a key factor in the scandal at Stafford hospital, where hundreds of emergency patients died after receiving inadequate attention in A&E. Whistleblowers who alerted managers to the ongoing problems were ignored.
Gary Walker’s ‘supergag’ is the latest in a long line of similarly punitive gagging orders slapped on NHS whistleblowers. In 2010, research by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism uncovered evidence that a number of doctors were being gagged after they had blown the whistle on their concerns about patient safety.
The most notorious of these cases is that of Dr Kim Holt, a paediatrician who was forced from her job at St Ann’s hospital in Haringey after warning management that staff shortages at the hospital would inevitably lead to a tragedy. Dr Holt claims that she was offered £120,000 to leave her job and remain silent, an offer she refused. Six months later, an inexperienced locum at the hospital missed obvious signs of abuse of a 17-month old child, later known as Baby P. Two days later, the child died at home.
Concern about doctors been stifled by compromise agreements led the General Medical Council, the GMC, to write to doctors earlier this year telling them not to sign ‘gagging’ clauses.
Related article: GMC moves to stop gagging clauses in NHS
The NHS refused to answer questions from the Today programme this morning but issued a statement saying that the ‘culture of the NHS needs to change and confidentiality agreements need to be the exception rather than the norm’.
But Dr Holt, who now chairs the whistleblowers’ campaign group Patients First, told the Today Programme that gagging orders continue to be used. ‘I am aware that compromise agreements with gags are being signed now, I mean very, very recently and we are also aware, through freedom of information requests, that millions are being spent on compromise agreements.’
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June 29th, 2012 at 5:04 pm (#)
The practice of using compromise agreements to prevent proper public scrutiny is not confined to the NHS. A recent example is found in lowly East Herts Council when the Chief Executive, Anne Freimanis, mysterious left by “mutual agreement” All FoI requests have been rebuffed on grounds of legal confidentiality. There is an appeal to the ICO pending. The compromise agreement is a device to prevent the public know the reasons for her departure and the costs including the pay back clause in a recent expensive early retirement package.
June 29th, 2012 at 5:37 pm (#)
It is absolutely imperative that gags are not agreed to and if imposed, must be disregarded. We must remember the old saying that the pen is mightier than the sword. Now, in the Internet age of mini-computers, tablets, iPads and iPhones, mobile blogging and tweeting, it is nigh-on impossible for the courts to enforce silenc. I hope the lawyers and judges out there are reading this. The message must get through to them, the truth will out, crooks in public service will be exposed, scandals will lead to dismissals and imprisonment.
June 29th, 2012 at 6:39 pm (#)
It is politically correct to express public support for whistleblowers in their important work of exposing poor care, patient harm, wrongdoing and, importantly, bullying in the NHS. So, of course, the Secretary of State, Department of Health, GMC, BMA, RCN, NMC, Royal Colleges and NHS Trusts themselves all make the right noises. But in truth none of these bodies does anything to give a whistleblower practical support.
Every one of the whistleblowing professionals I have encountered since my dismissal as a senior NHS paediatric consultant 18 months ago has proved to be highly competent, industrious, honest and totally pleasant. It is too much of a coincidence that such high calibre professionals have all raised concerns about various issues including fraud and then some time later end up labelled as troublemakers and wrong doers sanctioned by exclusion, disciplinary procedures and dismissal.
The use of severance payments and gags is the preferred way of sweeping the problem under the carpet at public expense. This helps protect the Trust’s reputation and of course that of senior management. In my case I was specifically told in a recorded meeting that if I did not accept this offer I would be put through a disciplinary procedure with the intention of dismissing me.
I regarded this offer as a publicly funded bribe to get the Trust CEO off the hook and refused it. The rest is history. I am totally unrepentent and have no regrets. Interestingly Gary Walker was screwed for using “inappropriate language” at work. It was claimed that he used the F word on a number of occasions. In the Trust I was dismissed from the F word came as second nature to the 3 Divisional managers I worked with. I, on the other hand, was dismissed for using inappropriate language of another sort. On one occasion I sent a classic historical prayer to my consultant colleagues as part of the job planning discussions. Most will know it. “To give and not to count the cost, To toil and not to seek for rest.” All received it well but one particularly foul-mouthed maanager who it was not directed to took exception. I was given an instruction to desist from religious language in the workplace.
These are just excuses to get rid of good staff who can see things going wrong and are unwilling to stay quiet when management refuse to listen or act. The whole issue then becomes embroiled in employment law which is run at public expense for the Trust but which the whistleblower has to fund privately as the BMA etc do not want to contest these cases.
Many professionals will hesitate to stand up for patients knowing what is likely to happpen. In a recent Medical Protection Society survey “fear of the consequences” was stated by doctors to be the main reason why they would not blow the whistle.
This is not healthy and as long as the supression, punishment and gagging of NHS whistleblowers is permitted by those at the top of the food chain such as David Nicholson and Andrew Lansley things are unlikely to change.
June 29th, 2012 at 6:55 pm (#)
I think the comment from NHS spokesman says it all:-‘culture of the NHS needs to change and confidentiality agreements need to be the exception rather than the norm’. To me that is an admission that gagging clauses are the norm. Why? If nothing to hide would you need to silence anyone?
June 29th, 2012 at 11:01 pm (#)
I had to deal with a case concerning a chief technician who had encouraged a lazy employee to get back to work. H
The hospital first called harassment, then that he had been using foul language, in spite of witness statement to the contrary.
It was all about cutting senior staff, it turned out.
July 3rd, 2012 at 4:02 pm (#)
Until January this year I worked in a Children’s Social Work service…i will not name it here… but i blew the whistle on unsafe practice by managers….which was promptly denied by the service executive after a perfuntory investigation.
I became ill as a result of the stress that accompanied my actions and the service brought ill health capability proceedings against me. I was offered a way out of the organisation but only if I signed a compromise agreement effectively barring me from discussing my allegations after I left.
I refused and was promptly dismissed…and despite writing to the politicians who sponsor this service…and the press no-one seems willing to investigate the matter in which extremely vulnerable children are being sacrificed on the alter of expediency…..
I am not a high flyer…earn very little money for helping save children’s lives….have no power or voice….so these matters go unchallenged…..
anyone want to help???
July 19th, 2012 at 5:05 am (#)
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