Suzie Bailey General Manager Children & Women's Services
When my internal NHS disciplinary hearing took place I was surprised to find
that Suzie Baliey, the General Manager for Children and Women's Services came
forward to give false evidence against me. In giving her evidence apart
from making some minor comments about the time frame in which she received
financial information from my department and that in some NHS Trusts she had
worked the management arrangements for integrating finance staff into the
service side of the organisation were different, the most serious allegation
that Ms Bailey made was to claim that when all the General Managers met prior to
being interviewed in July 2002, by KPMG a firm of accountants who had been
commissioned by the London office of the Directorate of Health & Social Care
to look at the financial management of St George's, that they had all agreed on the following:-
· That the Finance Directorate was reactive rather than pro-active.
· That there appeared be a culture of separation of the Finance Directorate from Clinical Services.
· That there was a lack of flexibility in the finance support that General Managers got in dealing with their roles and competing priorities.
· There is a lack of information on how services are costed and priced and a perceived lack of willingness by the Finance Department to share this information.
· The emphasis at monthly review meetings with the Finance Director are always that the finance problem is the Service Centre’s problem rather than a shared problem.
Miss Bailey also
asserted that on more than one occasion that I had been threatening and had said to her that the
financial position was so poor that Ian Hamilton will lose his job and some of
the General Managers will go with him.
Miss
Bailey who had worked at the Trust for only about two years, was the only
General Manager called to give evidence during the hearing and she presented no
documentary evidence at all to back up any of the claims that she was making,
simply asserting that she was speaking on behalf of all the General Managers. To show that her assertions were completely false I submitted
in evidence several e-mails that were sent in
July 2002 to all the General Managers by Ian Harris the Finance Directorate
Income Controller which explained in detail how the costing process had been
conducted and invited General Managers to contact him if they had any queries or
comments that they wanted to make. In
addition, I provided a copy of an e-mail that
I received from Miss Bailey dated as recently as the 5th July where
she stated clearly, that in a meeting that had been held earlier that day with
the General Managers, she wanted to make it clear that she was in no way
criticising the support she was getting from her finance manager and that she
also wanted to thank me for agreeing to regularly attend the General Mangers
meetings. In addition in statements
given to the hearing by Michelle Salter, Miss Bailey's previous finance
manager, and Philip Sargeaunt the Chief Management
Accountant, who had both attended the regular finance meetings where Miss
Bailey said I had made threatening remarks against her, both confirmed that I
had never made remarks of a threatening nature and both said that Miss Bailey
had made comments to them praising the work of the Finance Directorate and the
finance staff. An e-mail was also
produced from Miss Baileys predecessor Ruth Meadows saying that without the help of the finance staff she would
have made no contribution at all to the cost reduction target that she had been
given by the Chief Executive and I also submitted a bundle of e-mails and
letters showing not only a pro-active approach by the finance directorate but
that much praise had also been received from Suzie Bailey’s staff for
the work undertaken by the Finance Directorate.
More importantly, when Mike Cumberbatch
the Trust’s longest serving General Manager was called to give his evidence to
the hearing he made it clear that Suzie Bailey was not telling the truth when
she said she was speaking on behalf of all the General Managers. In his statement he made it clear that over a period of
several years he had found me to be approachable as Finance Director, when
raising any of his concerns with me and that he has always been given a fair hearing with the
opportunity for a full and frank exchange of views.
He also said that the finance staff encouraged by me had always been
pro-active in terms of suggesting both cost efficiencies and more effective ways
of managing the finances of the Service Centres. This evidence from the longest serving General Manger clearly
and completely contradicted the evidence given by Suzie Bailey and in his verbal
evidence Dr Cumberbatch also stated that he did not recall the meeting where Ms
Bailey said all the General Managers had agreed that there were problems with
the Finance Director. In fact Dr
Cumberbatch went on to say that although he could not remember that particular
meeting it was not however unusual for the General Managers to have a general
whinge about other departments and that in his view, the level of criticism
levelled at the Finance Directorate was not any greater than that levelled at
any other department and was probably less than that which had been levelled at
the Human Resources & Estates Directorates. In
response to questions Ms Bailey agreed that she had never at any stage raised
any of the concerns that she alleged she now had about me as Finance Director
and agreed that she had never sent me as much as an e-mail or single letter
about any of the issues she now said she had with me. In addition at the
disciplinary hearing she also agreed that she had never chosen to attend one of
my lunchtime seminars to better inform herself on the financial procedures and
processes operating within the Trust.
When Ian Hamilton the Chief Executive was asked why he had not spoken to all the General Mangers and had instead relied on evidence from one of the Trust’s shortest serving mangers, he replied that Suzie Bailey was the most senior General Manger and that she was the Deputy Director of Operations. As Ms Bailey had not held that post at the time of my suspension, Mr Hamilton was asked when the post had been advertised, as would be required of an equal opportunities employer. Mr Hamilton was unable to answer the question and later at the Employment Tribunal agreed in his evidence that the post had not been advertised and that Suzie Bailey had been appointed to the role directly by Marie Grant. Mr Cumberbatch confirmed when giving his evidence to the hearing, that he was unaware that the appointment had been either advertised or made. The verbal evidence of Ms Bailey had been completely refuted both by the witnesses and by the documentary evidence that I submitted to the hearing and it is clear that any independent Chairman would have found it impossible to give any credence to it at all. Why did Miss Bailey behave in this way I leave you to make your own judgement.