Fury as The Man With No Shame gets new NHS job
Mid Staffs scandal chief is back ... and working for a failing health trust
A DISGRACED health chief forced out over the Mid Staffs scandal has been handed a new job in the NHS.
Sir David Nicholson, who was dubbed ‘The Man With No Shame’ for his role in a disaster where up to 1,200 patients died, retired in 2014 with a pension pot worth almost £2million.
But the former chief executive of NHS England has now been appointed interim chairman of Worcestershire Acute Hospitals NHS Trust. The trust, which is rated inadequate by watchdogs at the Care Quality Commission, has been in special measures since December 2015. As head of West Midlands Strategic Health Authority between 2005 and 2006, Sir David failed to pick up on the horrific standards of care at Mid-Staffordshire NHS Trust.
He insisted he was not ashamed of his record and resisted calls to step down as NHS England chief.
Campaigner Julie Bailey, of Cure the NHS, whose elderly mother died in dreadful circumstances in the care of Mid Staffs, said: ‘This news is really upsetting when we tried so hard to expose the failings in the NHS and that targets were the priority, not patients.
‘David Nicholson was at the top when the Mid Staffs disaster happened and this sends the message that he is being allowed to fail and fail again. He is likely to balance the books at the new trust, as he has in the past, but I fear it will be to the detriment of the patients. This is a backward step in changing the NHS culture.’
NHS safety campaigner Fiona Bell said last night: ‘This is sending the wrong message, it is recycling NHS leadership time and time again.
‘Lessons are not being learned, at a time when one of Jeremy Hunt’s programmes is learning from deaths. It is a slap in the face to all those families lost loved ones in Mid Staffs because of the NHS culture.’ Sir David, 63, earned £211,000 a year as head of NHS England.
Since retiring, he has spent the past four years working in healthcare outside the NHS, and helped draw up a report for the Liberal Democrats recommending pensioners who work should pay more tax to fund healthcare. Unusually he was given his new £40,000-ayear role directly by NHS Improvement, without the post being put out for open competition.
The Health Service agency says he was parachuted in because of the ‘exceptional circumstances’ including the length of time the Worcestershire trust has been in special measures. The budget for the trust shows it is £40million in the red for 2018-19.
Ian Dalton, of NHS Improvement, said: ‘This is a trust that still faces many challenges, and I am delighted we have someone of Sir David’s calibre coming on board to help address those. This is David’s local health and care system. He understands the landscape and the improvement journey the trust is on.’
Having taken over at NHS England at the age of 50 in 2006, Sir David stayed for eight years, insisting he did not know what went on at Mid Staffs. He told MPs five years ago that he had no idea about the unfolding scandal, no access to statistics revealing high death rates while running the local health authority and would never sanction gagging orders against staff who tried to raise the alarm. Nearly 600 such orders were agreed on his watch.
Michelle McKay, of the Worcestershire trust, said Sir David’s ‘knowledge and understanding of the challenges we face in this trust, and across the wider health and care system will, I am sure, be enormously helpful to our efforts to secure safe, high quality hospital services for the people of Worcestershire, as well as the work we are doing to move to a position of sustainable financial balance’.
The appointment is for one year, but subject to review.