Statement by Wendy McCarthy St Georges Head Of Information Submitted To The Croydon Employment Tribunal_____________________________________________________________________
I have 30 years NHS Information Management experience, the last ten years having been spent at St George’s. In January 2001 Ian Perkin became my line manager when he assumed responsibility for IM&T from the Director of Operations. At that time I had been ‘Acting Head of IM&T’ for a period of approximately seven months; the Trust had advertised but been unsuccessful in recruiting to the post on a permanent basis.
One of the early actions, which Ian undertook was to review the role and job content of the ‘Head of IM&T’. In doing so he identified two separate skill sets, which he felt were unlikely to be found in a single individual. As a result of this he decided to split the responsibilities; I was made the ‘Head of Information’ and the post of ‘Head of Computing’ was advertised and successfully recruited to. I was very happy with the revised management arrangements and my personal responsibilities. The principles which I adopt and promote to manage and process patient information are very similar to those used for financial purposes and I found it very easy to discuss information issues with Ian.
Later Ian proposed replacing the ‘EPR Project Board’ with a ‘Computing Strategy Group’ and a separate ‘Information Management Group’. The establishment of this later group with representation from all disciplines has raised the profile of Information Management across the Trust. Such issues had previously been hidden and often lost under the IT umbrella. The importance of an active Information Management agenda was made explicit within the national Information Communications and Technology targets, which were subsequently published in February 2002.
I believe that these two actions, which Ian initiated, made a significant contribution to the Information Management agenda at St George’s.
A routine process undertaken by the Trust is the weekly SITREP report to the DHSC. This report includes a range of indicators, one of which being ‘the number of operations cancelled at the last minute’. The Information Team support the Bed Manager in compiling this data. When the Bed Manager was away in October 2001, Kelly, a junior member of the Information Team reported to me that she had been told by the then Director of Operations to change the number of reported ‘cancellations’ from 28 to zero.
She was very concerned by what she had been instructed to do and having audited her work I could confirm that the figures she had prepared were correct. I spoke to Ian Perkin about this who raised the issue with the Chief Executive.
There followed a series of interchanges between Ian and the Director of Operations, which focused on the ability of the computer system (PAS) to record the data and the definitions, which were being used to abstract the information. Ian independently discussed the definitional issue with the Regional office and was able to confirm that the definition the Trust had been using was the correct one.
Three weeks after the issue was first raised cancelled operations were again reported as abstracted from the PAS system and according to the original rules. To the best of my knowledge the figure, which had been changed was never corrected.
At the Trust disciplinary hearing I was asked if there was any justification for reporting a figure of zero. I responded that my investigations had found no such reason. The figure of 28 had been compiled using an established process and a separate check of the individual cancellations with the staff responsible for recording the events in the computer system had confirmed this to be correct.
In resolving this issue Ian Perkin had suggested that sensitive figures, such as these, should be reported to the Executive Team each week thereby ensuring a consistent and current understanding by all Directors. This was something that was quickly established and continues today.
The way in which Ian addressed this specific issue reflects his overall management style, which I found to be principled and evidence based. He has been a supportive and fair manager whose open management style extends to all staff within his teams.
Wendy McCarthy
Head of Information 28th March 2003