John Reid

Tony Blair's Health Chief John Reid got the surprise of his life when he attended Weymouth Speedway on Bank Holiday Monday. Looking to campaign for votes from the speedway fans, the Cabinet Minister and his aides had not realised that Weymouth's opposition were in fact the Wimbledon Speedway team, whose Chairman is none other than Independent Parliamentary Candidate and well known NHS whistleblower Ian Perkin. Faced with a range of questions from Perkin when the two shook hands, a disconcerted Reid and his aides, had no answer to the question of why no action had been taken following the publication last year of the NHS internal report, that upheld Perkin's allegations that John Parkes the St George's Deputy Chief Executive had inappropriately altered the cancelled operations statistics at St George's. Reid tried to assert that with Perkin's High Court case against St George's Healthcare to be held on either the 12th or 13th May, it would have been inappropriate for him to respond to Perkin's questions, but as Perkin pointed out his court case is about the unfairness of his sacking and in no way prevents the Secretary of State from ensuring that those in the service who are found to have falsely altered patient activity statistics are appropriately dealt with, rather than as in the St George's case promoted to the position of Chief Executive in another NHS Trust. Reid then claimed that this was a matter being dealt with by junior officials in his department and he had no knowledge of the circumstances surrounding Parkes promotion. As Perkin pointed out to Reid his answers only highlighted what everyone in the NHS already knows, that the Secretary of State and his officials , contrary to the public statements they make about supporting "Whistleblowers", in fact do nothing and thereby actually encourage the bullying and intimidation that is applied to those who have dared to tell the truth about the "Real" NHS.