TRANSCRIPT OF BBC TODAY PROGRAMME 14 FEBRUARY 2013
CLIP WALKER A:
Well I think Robert Francis [QC] last week made it very clear that there was a culture of fear
in the NHS and that people are prevented on speaking out when they raise concerns about
patient safety. I was one of those people and I think it's important now that people hear about
what happened.
HOSKEN AAT1:
IN 2006, GARY WALKER BECAME THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF THE UNITED
LINCOLNSHIRE HOSPITALS TRUST EIGHTEEN YEARS INTO AN NHS CAREER. HE
SAYS HE WAS SORTING OUT THE MANY PROBLEMS OF THE TRUST INCLUDING A
BIG DEBT AND A FAILURE TO TO HIT TARGETS WHEN THINGS STARTED TO GO
WRONG. HE CLAIMS EXCESSIVE EMERGENCY DEMAND FOR HOSPITAL BEDS
FORCED HIM TO ABANDON OFFICIAL GOIVERNMENT TARGETS FOR NON
EMRGENCY CASES, BRINGING HIMTO CONFLICT WITH HIS IMMEDIATE BOSSES.
CLIP WALKER 2:
03'03: AH: But when did things start going wrong between you and your senior managers
within the National Health Service itself?
GW: Well, It was towards the end of 2008; demand for emergency care had started to rise
much, much higher than anyone had planned and by 2009 that demand was so great that I
informed the [strategic] health authority that we would not be meeting the targets for 18 week
patients these are non-urgent patients03'30: AH: But why couldn't you meet the target- why had you decided to make that choice
between either meeting that 18 week target or not?
GW: It's a simple decision: you have emergency care or you have care that could wait. It's not
nice to wait but it could wait and therefore we chose as a board- it was not just me - that we
should take priority- that emergency care should take priority.
0'3'56: AH: What do you fear could have happened if you had taken a different decision at
that point? If you had decided to try and reach those targets?
04'04: GW: Well if you read the Francis report. What happened in Mid Staffordshire they
didn't take the view. Their view was that they were going to pass the pressure down from the
department of health, from the strategic health authority to the people at the coalface so they
would be under a lot of pressure and they would make mistakes. And we as a board, and I
,wasn't prepared t let that happen.
04'25: AH: So you were worried about another Mid Staffs in Lincolnshire - if you'd done what
you were told to do by the strategic health authority?
GW: Well, the pressure that I came under from Barbara Hakin specifically was that and I
quote to meet the targets 'whatever demand'.
AH: Barbara Hakin being the chief executive of the strategic health authority at the time?
GW: Being the chief executive of the strategic health authority who's now in the department of
health. But that pressure is wrong; I mean that is a dangerous thing to be saying. In a
situation where the hospitals are so full that you just don't have any beds for most of the day
because you know, the beds are warm between patients because it is that serious. You have
to take the decision not to treat the non emergency patients and I was being told that I had to
meet the targets whatever the demand and that's just dangerous.
05'55: AH: But presumably the strategic health authority under Barbara Hakin at that time
thought you were not able to cope with the demands at the hospital and meeting these very
important targets or what the government perceived to be very important targets?
GW: Well I'll give you an example of the approach of the health authority. I put the hospitals
on something called red alert, which is a widely used system in the NHS It enables you to tell
other trusts, other hospitals, the ambulance service, GPs that your hospital is full and I got a
phone call from the health authority saying - this is Barbara Hakin - saying to me that I
needed to come off red alert. And I said well the hospital is not safe to come off red alert
because it's full and the response was well that we have a capital budget that we're going to
approve today and if you're still on red alert it's going to be difficult for me to support your
case to the board. My view was what's the approval of capital money got to do with running a
safe hospital? So these are the sort of threats that are made to you in order for you to keep
making you to keep trying to deliver targets and that's just not the right way.
07'03: AH: And you consider that to have been a threat at the time?
HOSKEN AAT2: DAME BARBARA HAKIN, AS SHE IS NOW,THE NATIONAL DIRECTOR
FOR COMMISSIONING DEVELOPMENT FOR THE NHS, DECLINED TO BE
INTERVIEWED. REST OF STATEMENT EXPECTED
IN 2010, MONTHS AFTER HIS DIUSPOUTE WITH THE STRATEGIC HEALTH
AUHTORITY, AND UNDER A NEW TRUST CHAIRMAN APPOINTED BY THE AUTHOTIY,
MR WALKER WAS SACKED FOR ALLEGEDLY SWEARING IN MEETINGS WHICH HE
AND HIS SUPPORTERS DESCRIBED AS A TRUMPED UP CHARGE. HE SUED FOR
WRONGFUL DIMISSAL AND ON THE EVE OF AN EMPLOYMENT TRIBUNAL
RELUCTANTLY AGREED TO SIGN HIS SECRET COMPROMISE AGREEMENT.
16'45": GW: Yeh, I was about to lose everything. No career. What else would anyone do in
that situation. I didn't want to sign but I didn't have a choice.
17'56" Well we on the Today programme have reported a figure for your total settlement of
around half a million of pounds of public money including costs and tied to a so called
confidentiality agreement . Can you tell us that's the case?
GW: I can't tell you the full cost of it and there are many other things I'm afraid that are in that
agreement that I really can't expose at this stage without incurring a much bigger risk of being
sued by the NHS.
AH: So you're still gagged in a sense?
GW: I am still gagged and there's nearly 3,000 pages of evidence of which I've only been able
t speak to you about a few of those and those are the things that I would like the health select
committee to expose so that we can all protect patients more.
27'24": GW: This is wider than just unlawful compromise agreements. This is a culture that's
driven by the top. This is a culture of fear, a culture of oppression - of information that's either
going to embarrass a civil servant or embarrass a minister. These are big problems. And if
you consider that the people that have been running the NHS have created that culture of
fear, they need either to be held into account or new people need to be brought in to change
that culture.
HOSKEN AAT 3: ON DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH THE DEPARTMENT PREVIOUS
HISTORY ON WHISTLKE BLOWING PLUS LINK INTO MORTALITY RATES ETC
WALKER CLIP:
31'05: Following the Mid Staffs report there were indications that other hospitals were going to
be under investigation for allegedly high mortality rates. Now United Lincolnshire Hospitals
Trust is one of those, in fact I think it's number two why kind of concerns does that raise with
you?
GW: I think it raises two concerns with me. The first concern is why don't we know the answer
to whether these five hospitals are safe or not and why does there to be a special review of
them? I think it's very worrying for everybody that Bruce Keogh who's the medical director of
the NHS has been asked to parachute into those organisations. I think the second question
is what does that mean for United Lincolnshire? Well, three years ago I raised concerns that
the pressures were too great and that they shouldn't be passed down the line and it looks me
as thought that's exactly what's happened.
HOSKEN ENDS AAT4: MORE DOH STATEMENT PLUS DETAILS OF LEGAL THREAT
AGAINST WALKER