LONGER READ: NHS Highland bullying – one year on
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A YEAR ago a letter of less than 400 words written by four doctors lifted the lid on the biggest scandal in NHS Highland’s history.
Eileen Anderson, Lorien Cameron-Ross, Iain Kennedy and Jonathan Ball accused the health board of having a “long-standing bullying culture.”
As more and more claims of wrongdoing began to emerge in the weeks and months that followed, the public were stunned that an organisation designed to care for people could treat its own staff so badly.
A blaze of publicity saw the ills of the health board placed under national scrutiny as they rocketed to the top of the political agenda.
Ultimately cabinet secretary for health Jeane Freeman ordered an independent review into the claims that eventually backed the whistle-blowers’ claims.
Now, 12 months on from the initial publication of their letter, the Inverness Courier has asked the whistle-blowers for their personal reflections on the fall-out.
Though all four have different takes they all agree the “tipping point” came when they realised the board was otherwise going to simply ignore their concerns.
According to Dr Anderson, the group got a board member to take their concerns forward only for “more senior board members” to persuade her to drop it.
She said: “We decided because we had failed to get it through the professional committees to be heard by the board, we had no option but to go to the press, otherwise we were just going to become part of the problem.”
Dr Anderson and Dr Cameron-Ross, who both worked at Raigmore Hospital, said the reaction among many of their NHS colleagues to the letter when it appeared was immediately negative.
“There was an instant reaction and instant condemnation of us and no understanding whatsoever,” Dr Anderson said.
“Many colleagues got in touch to say how we’d behaved very unprofessionally and that they disagreed that there was any bullying and they disagreed with the way we went to the press.”
The release of the letter also left Dr Cameron-Ross wrestling with whether they had done the right thing, though she said the overwhelming sense, personally, was that they had given a voice to victims who had felt unable to speak up on their own behalf.
“I had a lot of anxiety about whether I had suddenly miscalled something – and I was still working with people who were very, very angry at what we’d done,” she said. “I felt a definite chill.”
Dr Kennedy had been talking within NHS Highland about bullying since 2010 and said he had already been targeted by high-ranking members of the board, suffering ostracisation, disrespect and intimidation.
“For me, it was the end of a nine-year journey and I felt satisfied and I felt relieved,” he said of the decision to go public.
“I felt a weight off my shoulders because we were finally exposing the truth.”
Having been a member of the health board himself he said he found the reaction of colleagues to the whistle-blowers “terrifying”.
“I noticed that no matter how hard I worked to deliver the board’s vision it never seemed to be right and it was rather mysterious why,” he said.
“I got some very intimidating phone calls. The call that I remember was a very deep slow voice that was completely out of character to that person’s normal voice – it was terrifying, it was like something out of a horror movie.”
Dr Ball claimed his whole GP practice became the target of an angry board.
“We are quite an innovative practice, pushing the boundaries, doing things a bit differently but actually getting really good results,” he said.
“We have had threats to substantial contracts which would have destabilised the practice. We had to circumvent the board and go straight to the Scottish Government to seek their support to maintain the services we were delivering.”
On the review carried out by John Sturrock QC and the response to it so far, the whistle-blowers are quite critical.
Dr Ball said: “I think when the Sturrock report came out it was obvious to a lot of people that it was noteworthy as much for what it did not contain as for what it did.
“There is also the issue of accountability, otherwise what is the message to the rest of the workforce?
“Is it simply ‘We can move on and change, but misdemeanours of the past don’t really matter’?
“The board haven’t done a root cause analysis and haven’t articulated that to each other as a board yet, or acknowledged where the source of the problem arose or their individual parts in not addressing that.”
Dr Anderson said: “There have been positive things happening but we have not seen enough action yet.
“There was supposed to be a senior officer appointed to implement the Sturrock review and that was only advertised to those currently in the employ of NHS Highland.”
Dr Cameron-Ross added: “There was a phrase in the Sturrock report that was something like ‘I haven’t told you what the problem is, I’ve told you where to look’, like a riddle.
“Well, from people in the workplace I am hearing that things really haven’t changed, so those bullies are still in situ, haven’t been identified, haven’t changed their behaviour.
“But the letter changed the conversation. Before we whistle-blew it was simply called ‘gossip.’
“It has now been discussed in parliament, at the British Medical Association conference, in advisory committees.
“It is a conversation people are now having, so that is a success.
“But sometimes I feel when am I going to get to stop being a whistle-blower and get back to the day job?”
Immediately following the publication of the Sturrock Report NHS Highland chief executive Iain Stewart insisted there would be no more bullying of staff at the health board.
“I would really like to thank all our colleagues or former colleagues who have come forward and helped compile that report,” he said. “I would also like to
say thank you to the whistle-blowers for coming forward, for
they were certainly the catalyst for this.”
A number of staff engagement sessions have been held across the organisation as part of efforts to create a more listening culture.
The health board is also currently working towards the creation of an action plan to directly address the issues raised by the report.
n More in Tuesday’s Courier.
