'Whistleblower' sacking inquiry must be independent

17.05.2010  West Cornwall MP, Andrew George, welcomed news that the new Health Secretary had ordered an investigation into the sacking of the former Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust Chief Executive, John Watkinson, in 2008. Mr George and his Parliamentary colleagues had called for an inquiry.

However, Mr George has issued a caution to the Health Secretary – Rt. Hon Andrew Lansley MP – that such an investigation should not be undertaken by Departmental officials who could not be seen as unassociated with Mr Watkinson’s original suspension.

The internal Inquiry will be headed by NHS Chief Executive, Sir David Nicholson. It is rumoured that Sir David and Mr Watkinson clashed before when Mr Watkinson was the Chief Executive at Bromley Hospital. There is a widely held concern that the decision to suspend Mr Watkinson was orchestrated not by the RCHT Board but by senior Departmental officials and the Strategic Health Authority.

“It is important that a proper investigation is undertaken and completed quickly," Mr George said. "The recent tribunal lifted the lid on what appears to be a culture of turf war and personality clashes which have diverted the NHS from its primary objective – serving patients.

“It is unlikely that any investigation undertaken by senior executives of the NHS is going to find fault with themselves. Fears of a whitewash may be well founded.

“Top executives don’t know what they’re doing. The RCHT had 5 Chairmen and 5 Chief Executives in just 4 years. These were decisions taken by those at the top of this organisation, not by patients’ representatives.

“A better long term solution would be to make the local NHS accountable to the local community and its patients. The present NHS structure obscures patients from the management of frontline services through a fog of complex and unaccountable bureaucracy. There’s a perpetual revolving door of new ministers. None of them ever get sufficiently on top of the brief to tackle the culture amongst senior NHS managers which has created these problems.

“Above all, Cornish patients should not suffer from these decisions. The pay offs and the legal and other costs arising from this scandalously poor management by Government officers in Taunton and London should not be borne by the front line NHS in Cornwall.”