In this week's Croydon Guardian, we reported that whisteblower David Drew had written to Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt calling for his intervention in the ongoing legal battle between consultant cardiologist Kevin Beatt and Croydon Health Services NHS Health Services Trust. Here we publish his letter in full.
The Employment Tribunal has ruled in favour of Dr Beatt in a comprehensive 200-page judgement.
He was unfairly dismissed for making protected disclosures.
The tribunal even judged the trust’s referral of Dr Beatt to the General Medical Council as a detriment, ie a result of his making protected disclosure to the Coroner.
The judgement is not complimentary in its comments on witnesses put up by the trust including chief executive John Goulston and his predecessor Nick Hulme.
Sir Robert Francis QC made it clear to the Health Select Committee last February that NHS leaders and politicians are now perfectly aware what is happening to NHS whistle-blowers.
He expressed his own opinion that chief executives caught suppressing whistle-blowers should be dismissed.
I am not certain why these two chief executives are still in post.
The trust is now appealing the tribunal's decision and has engaged a hugely expensive legal team to represent it.
This can serve no purpose other than to further drain the already over-stretched local health economy.
Dr Beatt acted in the best interests of his patients and in line with his ethical professional obligations laid down by the General Medical Council.
The tribunal’s judgement makes this clear. John Goulston and his board are spending taxpayers money to defend their own decision to sack a senior consultant whistleblower.
This cannot be right.
In a Daily Mail article of March 8, 2014 it was reported that you had intervened at Royal Wolverhampton Hospitals NHS Trust after allegations that chief executive David Loughton had threatened a staff member for raising concerns about data fiddling.
It was reported that the NHS Trust Development Authority would conduct a “speedy independent investigation”.
David Loughton, incidentally, is the chief executive who acted against consultant whistleblower Raj Mattu. Dr Mattu, a senior cardiologist like Beatt, won his case at the employment tribunal last year.
This has already cost Coventry and Warwick NHS Trust millions with more at risk at Mattu’s remedy hearing.
At a time when the Government is already restricting spending on the NHS the public will be dismayed by the waste of such huge sums to save the necks of errant senior NHS managers.
I am afraid the board at Croydon Health Services is heading down this very route.
For many years NHS whistleblowers have been told by politicians that they will not intervene in what are seen as employment disputes.
As you well understand it is now established that some NHS managers, with the help of expensive lawyers and at tax-payer expense, engineer employment law cases against whistle-blowers.
But Dr Beatt’s case is categorically not an employment dispute.
His bona fide whistle-blower status has been certified by an employment tribunal.
It would seem right therefore for you to intervene immediately and halt Croydon Health Services appeal before another penny is spent.
We then need a fully independent inquiry into how the trust board conspired to ruin the career of an excellent doctor.
I look forward to your response.
DAVID DREW
- Send your letters to: letters@croydonguardian.co.uk
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