'The culture of neglect goes right to the top': NHS chief MUST be held to account for ignoring warnings lives were at risk, says second whistleblower



David Bowles told Sir David Nicholson United Lincolnshire Hospitals was under 'huge pressure' to meet non-urgent targets



Said patient safety was being compromised in same way as Stafford

Hounded out of job as chairman just like Gary Walker

Hounded out: David Bowles said he told Sir David Nicholson that United Lincolnshire Hospitals was being put under 'huge pressure' to meet non-urgent targets

A whistleblower wrote to the head of the NHS to warn his trust was ‘slipping into Mid Staffordshire territory’.

David Bowles told Sir David Nicholson that United Lincolnshire Hospitals was being put under ‘huge pressure’ to meet non-urgent targets.

He said patient safety was being compromised as it had been in Stafford where 1,200 lives are thought to have been lost needlessly.

But the 63-year-old was hounded out of his job as chairman just like Gary Walker, the trust’s former chief executive, who risked a £500,000 pay-off to break a gagging order last week.

Mr Walker exposed the way in which meeting targets was prioritised over patient care and called for Sir David’s resignation for failing to intervene.

The most powerful man in the NHS is already under pressure to quit over his role in the Mid Staffordshire scandal.

On Friday, Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt attacked ‘institutional self-preservation’ in the Health Service while grieving families marched on Downing Street to call for Sir David’s resignation.

Last night, Mr Bowles demanded Sir David be held to account for his role in ‘ignoring’ an imminent scandal at his trust, which is now under investigation over the deaths of 670 patients.

In his letter of July 2009 to Sir David, Mr Bowles claims he was put under huge pressure to guarantee that the trust would meet its waiting-list targets ‘regardless of demand or any other factors’.

He claimed staff at the strategic health authority ‘resorted to harassment and bullying’ and ‘demanded without caveat... an unequivocal assurance or guarantee the non-emergency 18-week targets will be met in a manner which could be construed as an attempt to bully me and my trust into becoming a Mid Staffordshire and so put patient safety at risk’.

Sir David responded to letters from Mr Bowles, Mr Walker and the trust’s board with a ‘sham review’ which failed to look into patient safety, the whistleblower claimed.

He added: ‘I am qualified to say that having carried out my own analysis into the culture in other trusts. It didn’t touch on the safety issues. It didn’t touch on the issue of the breaches of the code around over-full hospitals.’

The father of two also claims he was ordered to sack Mr Walker, but refused and was forced out of his job. He was not made to sign a gagging order.

However, he did receive a legal warning from the trust’s lawyers that stated he should not disclose the terms of the agreement sealing his departure.



Mr Bowles added: ‘David Nicholson was warned by Gary Walker and by me that the trust would start slipping into Mid Staffordshire territory if the demands to meet non-urgent targets continued.

‘Gary was taken out and shot. After he was ousted, there were letters from clinicians saying that the balance between safety and targets had changed and safety was being compromised.

Ousted: Whistleblower Gary Walker, left, was 'taken out and shot' after warning Sir David Nicholson, right, that United Lincolnshire Hospitals trust was 'slipping into Mid Staffordshire territory', according to David Bowles



'If it’s the case that patients came to harm after those letters were written because of the mindless pursuit of non-urgent targets, then those who failed to act should be held to account.'

He said his concerns about patient safety began in 2008 when staff started complaining about the conduct and behaviour of senior employees of the East Midlands Strategic Health Authority. ‘They complained of harassment and bullying and remorseless desire to meet targets at all costs,’ he added.

'I was told that I needed to meet targets regardless of the hospital being over-full.

'There was an unwillingness to understand that over-full hospitals are dangerous and a complete denial of guidelines that state that when hospitals are over-full, targets should be temporarily suspended.'

Pressure: David Bowles said he was told to meet targets regardless of the fact that the hospital was over-full

He said he was horrified when Mr Walker told him he had been pressured to come off Red Alert, a declaration made when a hospital is too full to treat every patient.

This culminated in Mr Bowles and the trust’s board writing a letter to Sir David warning of the dangers of breaching the guidelines.

He added: ‘I was put under such pressure that I got the whole board, including Gary Walker, to refuse to put targets before patient safety. I remember Gary saying at the time: “I’m dead meat. They will come after me for this.” And sure enough, they did.’

He said when he raised concerns, it was made clear to him by Dame Barbara Hakin, who had been head of the SHA and is now head of commissioning for the NHS, that targets took precedence.

She is under investigation for allegedly putting targets before patient care.

A Department of Health spokesman said last night: ‘In 2009, Sir David swiftly commissioned an independent review to look at claims made by David Bowles and Gary Walker with regards to bullying and harassment by East Midlands SHA.

‘Allegations of this nature are taken extremely seriously. The review concluded there was no evidence whatsoever to back the claims and a summary of the review’s findings and Sir David’s response were published at the time.

‘Following concerns about the trust in 2009, Dame Catherine Elcoat, the SHA’s director of nursing carried out a full review into the quality of services.

‘The review concluded there were no immediate concerns in respect of patient safety, quality of care or quality of experience.

‘However, the review did confirm that there appeared to be a lack of strategic direction at the trust and that clinical governance arrangements were weak and action was taken to tackle this.’