NHS whistleblower ‘intimidated into ending tribunal by threat to press for huge costs’

‘He’s given me a threemonth supply that’s going to cost me £2,500’

and A JUNIOR doctor says he was forced to withdraw NHS whistle-blowing allegations, claiming he was threatened with “life-changing” costs if he lost the case.

Dr Chris Day flagged concerns about intensive care unit understaffing at Queen Elizabeth Hospital, Woolwich, in 2013 but was stripped of his training number and forced out of his job. Dr Day, 32, took the matter to a tribunal claiming Health Education England (HEE) had destroyed his career, yet was told that as a junior doctor he did not have the same whistleblower rights as other NHS staff, a position overturned by the Court of Appeal last year.

Four years on from his complaint, Dr Day claims that halfway through his evidence to a tribunal he was told he could be liable for huge costs if he lost.

Dr Day said he was forced to accept a settlement rather than risk insolvency.

“After two and a half days of my sixday cross examination I was contacted by my legal team and told that the NHS respondents had decided to inform me of their intention to seek costs for the entire four-week hearing if I proceeded to cross examine any of the NHS’s 14 witnesses and ended up losing,” he told The Sunday Telegraph. “It seems to me that this was designed to ... intimidate me into withdrawing my whistle-blow- working and were giving her an awful lot of side effects.

“Because her levels of pain were reduced, she was able to increase her function, she was able to get out.

“She went from being someone who was bed bound for days to getting out in society.”

The legalisation of cannabis for medicinal use came after eight-year-old ing claims. My wife and I, considering our responsibilities as parents, felt that we had no choice but to drop the case.

“I am disgusted at the way me and my family have been treated given that it has finally been accepted that I was acting in good faith raising important safety issues and that I have performed a public service defending junior doctor whistle-blowing protection.”

The HEE and Lewisham and Greenwich NHS trust have already spent more than £700,000 fighting the case, including paying £55,000 in costs to Dr Day after he won his initial case.

Norman Lamb MP, who brought up the case with Matt Hancock, the Health Secretary, and his predecessor Jeremy Hunt called for a public inquiry, saying Dr Day had not so much been “priced out of justice” as “crushed”.

“When you have serious allegations relating to patient safety raised – by a person, a whistleblower, who’s risking everything – there should be a fair and full hearing,” he said. “It’s an outrageous use of taxpayer money to crush and prevent the full facts ... being aired. It goes against the department’s talk of openness and transparency.”

The HEE denied it had threatened Dr Day, while the trust said it “did not ask its legal representatives in the case to make a significant cost threat to Dr Day when he was under oath and, further, did not make this request at any point”.