Now a gag on doctors and nurses: Hundreds being prevented from exposing poor care in hospitals by 'Stalinist' rules



Gary Walker case is just the tip of the iceberg, says health boss

Secret deals to keep former staff quiet made 'up and down the country'



Mike Parker, from the Royal College of Surgeons, said Mr Walker is 'speaking on behalf of many' after breaking gagging order



Speaking out: The case of NHS whistleblower Gary Walker is just 'the tip of the iceberg' according to a health boss

Hundreds of doctors, nurses and NHS managers are being prevented from exposing poor care by ‘Stalinist’ gagging orders.

A leading surgeon said the case of Gary Walker, who broke his silence to tell the Mail about high death rates, was just the tip of the iceberg.

Mike Parker said the secret deals to keep former staff quiet were a ‘threat to the survival of the Health Service’.

Freedom of Information requests show that 90 per cent of severance agreements between health trusts and doctors have gagging clauses. They stop frontline staff revealing their concerns about patient safety and hospital standards. Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt says he will write to all health trusts, urging them to drop the clauses or face ‘the consequences’ if they don’t.

But the row has placed question marks over the future of the most powerful man in the NHS, Sir David Nicholson, who has clung to his job despite presiding over the Mid Staffordshire hospital disaster that cost the lives of 1,200 patients.

Mr Parker, who sits on the council of the Royal College of Surgeons but was speaking in a personal capacity, said meetings with colleagues across the country had made him aware of ‘something akin to Stalinism’ in the NHS. Mr Parker said that Mr Walker – sacked as chief executive of United Lincolnshire Hospitals in 2010 – was ‘speaking on behalf of many’.

An investigation revealed that at least 170 hospital doctors in England and Wales had been handed gagging orders backed up by taxpayer-funded payoffs of millions of pounds when they quit. The doctors had signed severance deals with 71 NHS trusts. Fifty-five of the 64 contracts supplied by trusts – 90 per cent – had gagging clauses. Mr Parker, a laparoscopy and colorectal surgeon who has recently retired, said this approach had failed and that tough legal powers were needed to stop whistleblowers being ‘prosecuted or persecuted’.

He said: ‘It’s still going on. All we are seeing is the tip of a huge iceberg. I have spoken to colleagues up and down the country and I’m very aware of gagging orders and gagging clauses being put on doctors and surgeons.



‘It wouldn’t surprise me if there were hundreds of them out there. At the moment people are frightened of speaking out. I have the utmost admiration for this man in Lincolnshire, he is a brave man speaking on behalf of many doctors, surgeons, nurses and administrators.



Change needed: Mike Parker from the Royal College of Surgeons said tough new legal powers are needed to protect whisteblowers

Pressure: Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt, left, says he will write to health trusts warning them to drop the clauses while Sir David Nicholson, right, is facing calls to resign over his handling of Mid Staffordshire hospital



‘Who knows how many there may be? If the minister really wants to get to the bottom of this my suggestion is he really must implement some sort of legal intervention.

‘This sort of behaviour is very, very frightening, it’s nothing less than what you had in Stalinist Russia, and it has got to be rooted out. I think it goes right to the very top.

‘If the NHS is going to survive, this behaviour, this sort of philosophy has got to stop. It’s unacceptable in this day and age. It goes back 15 or 20 years but has been getting gradually worse and worse.’

Julie Bailey, founder of the pressure group Cure the NHS, said gagging clauses were a ‘disgrace’ in a caring profession.

‘It’s an outrage that people are silenced when they want to raise concerns about care in the NHS,’ she added. ‘It’s also worrying that many of those being gagged are doctors and nurses on the front line. Could this be one of the reasons the NHS is in the crisis it’s in? What we want Jeremy Hunt to do now is declare an amnesty for all whistleblowers and invite them to share their concerns about our Health Service.’

An investigation revealed that at least 170 hospital doctors in England and Wales had been handed gagging orders backed up by taxpayer-funded pay-offs of millions of pounds when they quit

From Saturday's Mail reporting on calls from MPs and bereaved families for Sir David Nicholson to be sacked

Sir David Nicholson has clung on to his job despite presiding over the Mid Staffordshire hospital disaster which cost the lives of 1,200 patients

Mr Parker said he knew medical staff who had tried to speak out but encountered ‘bullying’ including threats to lose their job or lose performance-related pay, or a campaign by management to try to isolate them from their colleagues.

It emerged yesterday that Mr Walker had been forced to sign his gagging order in October 2011 just a week after the last health secretary, Andrew Lansley, wrote to trusts demanding they be banned.

The minister told hospital bosses that staff ‘need to know that they have a responsibility to raise concerns if they see risks to patient safety’ and ‘be reassured that the Government stands full square behind them’.