Public deserves truth on Trust

IT’S taken over 14 months to come to any kind of conclusion over the investigations at Southport and Ormskirk hospitals.

And we are still no wiser than we were last year.

It was August 2015 when Trust chief executive Jonathan Parry and three senior colleagues were suspended.

The reasons? The Trust wouldn’t say at the time. It was apparently in connection with whistleblowing allegations - but the nature of what was being alleged was kept a closely guarded secret.

The long suspensions began. The taxpayer funded annual salaries of those on gardening leave? £150,000-£155,000; £100,000-£105,000; £90,000-£95,000; £65,900-£81,600.

Three investigations have since begun, the costs of which the Trust has repeatedly declined to reveal, saying it is not possible until the entire process is complete.

Fourteen months later and Jonathan Parry has been dismissed, with a disciplinary panel finding evidence on 11 counts of misconduct, seven of which they believe amount to gross misconduct.

The Trust has once again declined to reveal the nature of the misconduct for which their chief executive has been dismissed.

Trust chair Sue Musson has refused requests to be interviewed or to answer any questions on the issue.

Southport & Ormskirk NHS Hospitals Trust is a public service - this whole process has cost hundreds of thousands of our (taxpayers’) money.

The thousands of people who work for the Trust, the tens of thousands of us who are patients, deserve to know more.