An orthopaedic surgeon dismissed for whistle-blowing about patient safety concerns has won his claim against Britain’s Care Quality Commission (CQC), where he had a part-time secondment and during which time his observations about inadequate hospital inspections, among other issues, were ignored.
Shyam Kumar, who worked for University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust, but was engaged as a special adviser on hospital inspections for the healthcare watchdog in 2014, said that between 2015 and 2019 he contacted senior colleagues at the CQC with numerous concerns about inadequate hospital inspections, staff bullying and serious patient harm. He said these concerns were ignored and ultimately led to his dismissal, reports Personnel Today.
"The whole energy of a few individuals in the CQC was spent on gunning me down, rather than focusing on improvement to patient safety and exerting the regulatory duties,” he said.
In June 2018, he emailed CQC colleagues about negligently performed operations, the manipulation of waiting lists and significant patient harm at Morecambe Bay, and how the trust was burying the concerns “under the carpet”.
At the Manchester employment tribunal, counsel representing the CQC told him his claim the regulator had ignored his concerns was “fanciful”.
However, the judgment in the case said: “It is clear the concerns raised by the claimant in the form of protected disclosures had a material influence on the decision to disengage him.”
Kumar did not pursue damages for any financial loss in his claim, limiting it to an award for injury to feelings and a declaration only, and was accordingly awarded £23 000.
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