Ian Perkin - NHS Whistleblower
NHS Reform Group submission to Mr. Lansley, Secretary of State for Health and to the Mid Staffs Public Inquiry. Novemeber 2010 A brief outline of my case is that I, Ian Perkin, worked in the public sector for a continuous period of thirty-two years. During that period I never had any complaint made against me by anyone and in fact I was promoted on numerous occasions until in 1990 I was appointed to Director of Finance of St George's Health Care NHS Trust one of the biggest NHS Trust's in the country. During my time with the NHS I received letters thanking me for the contribution I was making to the NHS from people such as Sir Donald Cruickshank (who went on to become Chairman of the London Stock Exchange) and Lady Elizabeth Valance (a member of the Committee on Standards in Public Life). In the year 2000 in addition to being Director of Finance I became Director of Information and computing.
In October 2001 a junior member of the information team reported to her manager that the Deputy Chief Executive was instructing her to reduce the number of operations that the hospital were cancelling at short notice to zero, when over a period of a few weeks more than eighty operations had been cancelled. This matter was then reported to me as Director of Information. I reported this matter to the Chief Executive Ian Hamilton and that is when my problems started with me losing my job soon afterwards. Interestingly, while I ended up sacked the Deputy Chief Executive John Parkes, who later was found by an NHS investigation to have ordered the inappropriate alterations to me made to the cancelled operations statistics went on to become Chief Executive of several more NHS organisations. The matter was reported in many newspapers and on the TV and radio at the time including the Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2004/oct/20/NHS.uknews I understand that he is now Chief Executive of Northamptonshire PCT http://www.foi.northants.nhs.uk/Resources/Contacts/People/chiefpct.jsp
The Chairman of the Trust Catherine McLoughlin called me to a private meeting to tell me that she considered I had unreasonably caused tension with my board colleagues by raising this issue and the Chief Nurse Marie Grant sent an e-mail to all members of the Board saying it was disappointing that I had chosen to raise this issue. Nine months later in October 2002 I was suspended from my job and subjected to a biased disciplinary hearing chaired by the Chairman which led to my dismissal from my employment in December 2002.
I took the Trust to an employment tribunal and was successful, despite the Trust's denials that they had done anything wrong at all, in proving that I had been unfairly dismissed by St George's both because of a biased hearing and because my rights to natural justice had been denied me (my contractual entitlement to an internal NHS appeal was refused). In addition thanks to the young lady in the Information Department being kind enough to provide a sworn statement to the Tribunal, I was able, again contrary to NHS denials, to prove that I had made a protected disclosure under the terms of the Public Interest Disclosure Act. The Act is supposed to provide protection to "whistle-blowers" but in my case as in many others it provided no protection at all, because although I had won my case for unfair dismissal and proved I had made a protected disclosure under PIDA, the NHS argued that this was not the reason that I had been dismissed, but my sacking was because I was not considered to be a " team player " and had made unfounded allegations against my former Chief Executive and other senior NHS staff. It was an argument that the Employment Tribunal accepted, so that although I won my case it was a pyrrhic victory in that I was awarded no compensation at all. The allegation that I had made unfounded allegations was never investigated by the NHS until after the Employment Tribunal had ended, a tribunal at which the only evidence given against me at the Tribunal was given by the very people who had conducted the proven biased disciplinary hearing. By the time the NHS investigation (authorised very belatedly by the then NHS Chief Executive Sir Nigel Crisp) had reported, both my former Chairman and Chief Executive had left their posts and the report and so avoided the national publicity which showed that the Employment Tribunal had been wrong to accept the NHS evidence that I had made unfounded allegations about the Chief Executive Ian Hamilton, because the NHS's own investigation showed that among other things that Hamilton had charged the part of the cost of a private party held at the London Savoy Hotel to the NHS. The matter was reported in the London Evening Standard. http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-14130079-waiting-list-cheats.do You will not that the other well known NHS figure mentioned in the newspaper article, as a result of the information I provided was Sir Andrew Dillon who is currently the Chief Executive of the National Institute of Clinical Excellence (NICE).
Another individual involved in dismissing me from St George's was the Medical Director Paul Jones. One would expect a Medical Director to be someone who would always act with great integrity and make sound judgments in the performance of the role. However, one day after my Employment Tribunal ended the NHS was issuing a High Court apology in respect of statements he had made about the clinician who was in charge of the reproductive medicine centre at St Georges. http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2003/jun/20/NHS.politics
As a post script, despite having been branded by the NHS as not a "team player" I have gone on to build a second successful career as Treasurer of Surrey Police Authority where I have been Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer for the last five and a half years.
If you want to know more about my experience with the NHS the Times wrote a good article on the way I was treated. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/article1015524.ece and I got good coverage from the BBC including an appearance on the Hardtalk programme http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/cta/progs/03/hardtalk/perkins22apr.ram
The other thing I discovered is that while politicians claim that they support "whistle-blowers" the reality is something else. The current government is using John Hutton to conduct an investigation into Pensions . I simply would not trust him to look into anything http://www.nhsexpose.co.uk/john_hutton.htm
I know that my case has been used as case law to get rid of other "whistle-blowers" in other organisations both within the NHS and outside and I am very sorry for that, which is why I remain available to give confidential advice and help to anyone who finds themselves in such a difficult situation.
I continue to give media interviews on whistle-blowing to the media. In the past couple of months I did BBC radio interviews on the subject including on the Nicky Campbell Show and I did a Channel 4 News interview with Jon Snow in June of this year on the Airdale Hospital scandal. http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/uk/airedale3674227.html
In my view the NHS will never become really effective and prosper until we reach a position, where NHS staff believe that if they make a disclosure under PIDA, it will be properly and independently investigated and that this will be the focus of any action taken, rather than what in my experience has been an approach of trying to ignore the factual matter being complained off and all the effort going into trying to ruin the character and reputation of the complainant, while promoting and rewarding and making excuses for those senior NHS individuals who the NHS should be holding to account.
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