Sir Nigel Crisp's Response To Fiddling Of Cancelled Operations
On the 17th October 2004 I wrote to Sir Nigel Crisp to ask him in the light of the conclusions of the Sissling report what action he intended to take regarding John Parkes and Julie Dent who both continue to be employed at senior level within the NHS. On the 20th October I received the following reply:-
The report says that Mr Parkes was responsible for an error of judgement - is does not conclude that there was any deliberate manipulation of waiting list reporting. However, any further action against individuals mentioned in the report is now a responsibility of the current employer.
Yours sincerely,
Nigel Crisp
How this reply squares with the public statements made by the Chief Executive of the NHS that he supports "Whistle - blowers" and has a "Zero tolerance policy" for those that fiddle waiting list figures (See BBC Report January 2002) is somewhat beyond me. Given that Julie Dent in a letter that she sent me on the on the 29th January 2003 stated, "Ian Hamilton informed me of the issues that you had raised in relation to waiting list reporting procedures. I discussed with him the action that the Trust had taken and have been kept informed of the Trust's subsequent actions in this regard" and that John Parkes in addition to having altered the cancelled operations figures was found to have used expletives when addressing junior female staff at meeting to discuss Out-patient statistics I think it is clear what sort of qualities Sir Nigel Crisp is looking for in those he wishes to see in senior NHS positions. Sir Nigel Crisp by his note to me, betrays all those hardworking individuals who do so much to try and make the NHS a success. They deserve more but unfortunately as long as Sir Nigel remains in charge they will never get the honest leadership the service needs. I have replied to Sir Nigel Crisp and you can read my reply by clicking here.