2nd E-mail To Crisp

2nd E-mail To Sir Nigel Crisp

From: Ian Perkin
Sent: 08 July 2003 18:20
To: nigel.crisp@doh.gsi.gov.uk
Cc: kurt.barling@bbc.co.uk; ianlg@parliament.uk; martyn halle; ryan.sabey@notw.co.uk; wrightt@parliament.uk
Subject: St Georges/Kings Director of Estates

Dear Sir Nigel,

Despite the fact that you have not done me the courtesy of replying to the simple and direct questions that I put to you in my letter of the 19th June 2003 I find I must communicate with you about wrong doing in the NHS yet again.

You will already be aware from my previous letters to you that I had asked to you to set up an independent investigation into the other issues that I have brought to your attention and which you have so far failed to respond to. However, this weekend additional information was brought to my attention by Martin Halle a journalist with the Metro News & Features Agency concerning the appointment of Ahmed Toumadj as the Director of Estates at Kings Healthcare NHS Trust. Martin Halle tells me that he has tape recorded conversations with both an official spokesman from Kings and with Andrew Dillon the Chief Executive of NICE. Mr Halle tells me that these conversations confirm that Kings appointed Mr Toumadj after having received a satisfactory reference from St George's and that Andrew Dillon agrees that he was the person who gave that reference. Therefore before I meet with the various journalists and television companies who have asked to speak to me about this issue, I am sending this e-mail to you as Chief Executive of the NHS to make sure that there can be no question about the fact that you are well aware of the situation and that you have refused my reasonable request to have the matter investigated which would have avoided the need to involve the media.

As Andrew Dillon will have been well aware serious allegations of fraud were made against Mr Toumadj when he worked at St George's and I was asked as Director of Finance to conduct an internal audit investigation into those matters. Although the main fraud charge was not found to be proved several other issues of misconduct came to light and these included:-

1). Mr Toumadj misusing his corporate credit card.

2). Receiving "absolutely magnificent hospitality" Mr Toumadj's words, from Sir Ian Dixon at Ascot Racecourse. Willmot Dixon being the firm commissioned to build the Courtyard Clinic contract at St George's which ended up in a contractual dispute.

3). Appointing PMS as contract managers to St George's without subjecting them to any form of competitive competition. The principle director of PMS was John Curtis who was a personal friend of Mr Toumadj of some seventeen years standing, both having worked together for Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Area Health Authority.

4). Allowing PMS to occupy rent free an area of the ground floor of Inglby House (St George's residential block) free of rent or any other charges for telephone or heat or light. This became the principle place of business from where PMS conducted their business as the analysis of the phone usage demonstrated.

5). Allowing PMS to project manage and supervise CFL Ltd a company whose managing director was Charles Frederick Lynch. Mr Toumadj during the investigation admitted that he know that Charles Lynch and John Curtis were both directors of a third company Real Home Ltd, which created an inappropriate conflict of interest in terms of PMS and CFL Ltd.

6). Installing in to the residential accommodation occupied by the daughter of a friend of Mr Toumadj's an expensive electric power shower not available in any of the Trust's any other units of accommodation.

7). Once Mr Toumadj had left St George's evidence of overpayments to PMS and CFL came to light, with the Trust refusing to pay CFL Ltd a claim in excess of £100,000 on the contract for the completion of the Post Graduate Education Centre.

While at the time I believed the matter was correctly handled, in that Mr Toumadj was suspended from his duties and then left St George's without any payment of notice following my investigation, I was staggered to be told by Ian Hamilton the current Chief Executive of St George's that Mr Toumadj had been appointed to the same post at Kings Healthcare NHS Trust. Because of this I previously handed over a copy of the internal audit file to the NHS Fraud Department Mr Gwillum Williams in 2001, but nothing appears to have been done. Having now been informed by Martin Halle of how Mr Toumadj got his position at Kings via the reference from Andrew Dillon, it seems to me that the culture of cronyism which flourishes so well under your leadership of the NHS has come into play again and that even someone who has quite clearly been guilty of gross misconduct can be re-employed in the NHS if the right people are prepared to ignore their history and give them a good reference. Although in my own case where the worst accusation that has been made against me is that I have a poor management style you, the London Regional Office and the Strategic Health Authority have always refused to see me thrown out of job at a moments notice without any right of appeal, which the ACAS code of conduct describes as being a denial of my rights to basic justice. I am confident that I will win my employment tribunal case despite the attitude that you and the NHS have struck towards me and when I do win, I intend to use the platform that I will given by the media to highlight how the NHS is really being operated.

Yours sincerely

Ian Perkin