Janet Watson Secretary To Director Of Finance St George's Healthcare NHS Trust Statement Given To Employment Tribunal
Statement Of Janet Watson
I
worked for St George’s Healthcare NHS Trust from 1991 as the Director of
Finance Ian Perkin’s personal assistant, retiring from my employment with the
Trust in December 2002. Prior to
working at St George’s I worked at Barclays International for twenty-two years
having been personal assistant to the Director of the Export and Projects
Department South East Asia.
I
was amazed in August 2002 when Mr Perkin was suspended from his duties as
Director of Finance. My relationship with Mr Perkin was such that in
addition to dealing with all his routine correspondence I also had his authority
to deal with all his confidential post and e-mails and I can state that at no
time did Mr Perkin receive any complaints from the senior management or other
staff of the Trust about his management style.
I had always assumed that if someone was to lose their livelihood that
they would clearly have done something wrong to justify it and I find the
suggestion that Mr Perkin had a poor management style simply impossible to
believe. In my view Mr Perkin
was a well-liked manager who got on well with nearly everyone.
The view of staff in the finance directorate was that Mr Perkin was a
firm but fair manager who was always very approachable.
There were a number of occasions during my time at St George’s when
staff approached me to say they had problems of one kind or another both
personal and professional and I always advised them to speak to Mr Perkin. I can
honestly say that on every occasion that I referred someone to speak to Mr
Perkin they left his office feeling reassured that they had been dealt with
sympathetically, fairly and professionally and not one individual ever expressed
the view that they were sorry that they had been to see him.
I also arranged the lunchtime seminars that Mr Perkin attended where he
was prepared to answer any questions that any member of the Trust’s staff
wished to put to him on any aspect of the finances of St George’s and the
wider NHS. For anyone to say that
he was not accessible give support and advice to the wider staff of St
George’s at any level is simply untrue.
I
have been asked to comment on some other specific points about Mr Perkin: -
1).
Mr Perkin is a “won’t do person”.
This is a comment that just doesn’t ring true.
Mr Perkin was always an extremely hardworking individual who worked
particularly hard on developing the Trust’s new PFI Cardaic/Neuro development,
working many late nights in the office, with pizzas being delivered to the
office at 10pm in the evening as Mr Perkin and his team had often not eaten. He
was always full of ideas for St Georges and always full of enthusiasm, which
communicated itself to the staff, and he always gave off a sense of pride in
working at St George’s. I never
knew Mr Perkin ever having to ask anyone to work late as because of the example
that he set, many of his staff wanted to get a good job done and worked for
however long it took to do it.
2).
Miss McLoughlin says that she cannot remember meeting Mr Perkin in
November 2001. I remember the
meeting in November very well. It
was extremely unusual for Miss McLoughlin to ever ask to see Mr Perkin outside
of formal board meetings and when this meeting was arranged at short notice I
remember Mr Perkin asking me if I knew what is was about, but I had not been
told. I cannot say that I now can
remember the exact time and date on which the meeting was held without referring
to the diary I left at St George’s, but I remember clearly that it was a
morning during November 2001. When
Mr Perkin returned from the meeting he called me into his office and said that
you will never guess what the woman said to me.
He told me that she had said that he was arrogant and that she didn’t
like him eating boiled sweets. He
went on to say that she had said that he didn’t know the hospital and that he
had informed her about the fact that two of his sons had been born there and
that many of his immediate family had been treated there as well.
He also said that Miss McLoughlin had told him that there was tension
with his other board colleagues and that when he had explained to her that this
was because he had flagged up that the cancelled operation figures had been
fiddled, she had told him she was not interested in his excuses.
Mr Perkin was clearly upset by the meeting and said he had never ever
experienced anything like it before in his career.
For Miss McLoughlin to now deny that the meeting ever took place I find
astonishing.
3).
Telephone call with John Parkes Deputy Chief Executive October 2001.
I remember putting a phone call through to Mr Perkin one morning in
October 2001 from John Parkes. I
did not hear what was said during the phone call, but immediately after it I
took a drink in to Mr Perkin, who was clearly upset. He said he had just had a
heated discussion with John Parkes who he said had suggested that he should be
prepared to lie for him in regard to the issue that he had raised about
cancelled operations. Mr Perkin told me that he had said to Mr Parkes that he
would not lie and that Mr Parkes could always rely on him to always tell the
truth regardless of whether he was a board member or not.
I
was so disgusted with the way that Mr Perkin had been treated by the Trust
management that on my retirement in December 2003 I wrote a letter Miss
McLoughlin and some other members of the Trust Board telling them directly, that
having worked for senior finance directors for over thirty years, never in all
my experience had I ever witnessed such a miscarriage of corporate justice.
In my view as I said in my letter, Ian Perkin’s dismissal is
groundless, baseless and totally without merit and the conduct of the members of
the St George’s board in dismissing him is reprehensible.