NHS trust dismisses governors who questioned allegations of email tampering

Investigation into conduct

The trust commissioned a human resources management firm, Ibex Gale, to carry out an investigation into the two governors’ conduct.

A 75% majority of the remaining governors voted to remove the suspended pair, according to UHMBT, following the external company's exercise. The firm interviewed 24 individuals - including the suspended governors - and reviewed around 600 physical and electronic documents to support its work.

UHMBT has not responded to questions from Computer Weekly as to how much Ibex Gale had been paid for the work.

Duffy, meanwhile, told Computer Weekly the governors’ dismissal represented a serious loss to the trust.

“After all the whistleblowing issues within UHMBT in recent years, it is incredibly disappointing to see two of the trust’s most experienced and hard-working governors being dismissed, in what seem to be very unconventional circumstances, for simply doing their job and holding the organisation to account,” he said.

"My understanding is that the role of the governors is to hold the non-executive directors of the Trust to account and to enhance good corporate and clinical governance. By raising questions over serious patient harms and associated deaths, the governors in question were simply carrying out their statutory duty," he added.

"It cannot be right that governors can be dismissed for raising legitimate patient safety concerns, and these actions are likely to have far-reaching implications for the role and responsibility of publicly-elected governors within an NHS Foundation Trust."

Another ex-whistleblower, Sue Allison, resigned from the trust’s council of governors last summer over its handling of the emails dispute and its treatment of other whistleblowers.

She cited a “bullying culture” at the time of stepping down from her role as a UHMBT governor.

The trust, however, said its decision to dismiss the two governors was in line with its constitution.

Professor Mike Thomas, chair of University Hospitals of Morecambe Bay NHS Foundation Trust, said: “Following numerous complaints from members of our Council of Governors about the behaviour of two of our public governors, and a request to act from the head governor, we suspended the two public governors from their duties in accordance with our Foundation Trust Constitution. 

“An independent investigation took place into the alleged conduct and behaviours, which found that for the majority of concerns raised, it was ‘more likely than not’ that the two suspended governors had acted in a manner detrimental to the interests of the Trust and/or committed a serious breach of the Council of Governors Code of Conduct. 

“Based on the findings of the investigation and the responses from the two governors, the Council of Governors made the decision to remove the two governors from office.

“Given the personal nature of the investigation, it would be inappropriate for us to discuss any further.”