£100k for NHS whistleblower doctor who was branded racist

A SURGEON who quit his job after being branded racist for raising concerns about the work of three Asian colleagues has won a £102,000 pay-out for unfair dismissal, it emerged yesterday.

Peter Duffy often worked 60-hour weeks and was voted ‘doctor of the year’ by colleagues at the NHS hospital where he was employed.

But when he blew the whistle on ‘unsafe’ practices by a Pakistani and two Indian colleagues, Mr Duffy claimed he became the victim of a ‘witch hunt’ and problems began.

He was named a racist in an anonymous poison pen letter to police, and at the same time, three of his colleagues claimed to managers that he was ‘racist’. None of the claims were ever substantiated.

Mr Duffy later resigned from the Royal Lancaster Infirmary in July 2016, blaming it for not paying him around £36,000 for agreed extra work, and said he felt he had been subject to abuse for speaking out.

Last month a judge ruled he had been unfairly dismissed because of the hospital’s failure to pay him between October 2015 and June 2016.

Mr Duffy, 58, who now works on the Isle of Man, told the Mail he was pleased with the ruling and said: ‘There was a secretive retaliatory campaign to brand me as a racist and accuse me of bias against black and minority ethnic doctors, an utterly false claim ... A witch hunt got going because I was regarded as a threat.’

Employment Judge David Frainey ruled Mr Duffy should receive £10,300 for unfair dismissal, plus almost £79,000 in compensation, and ordered the Trust to pay the surgeon almost £13,000 following unlawful deductions in his pay. But he said Mr Duffy’s whistleblowing was not behind the hospital’s decision to challenge his pay claims.

University Hospitals Morecambe Bay NHS Trust, which covers the RLI, said the majority of Mr Duffy’s accusations were withdrawn on the first day of the tribunal.