Article in the Guardian

There is an article in today’s Guardian and repeated in various media online which claims that Dr Hilary Cass, who used to work at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children NHS Foundation Trust, was prevented via a compromise agreement from raising concerns about patient safety. This is not correct.

Patient safety is always our top priority. The disagreements between the Trust and Dr Cass were unrelated to patient safety. There is nothing in the compromise agreement to prevent her from raising patient safety concerns and Dr Cass has emphasised to us that if she had had any evidence of on-going threats to direct clinical care, she would have had no hesitation in speaking out. We are contacting the publications concerned to ask for corrections.

The grievances raised by Dr Cass after she had left the Trust were unrelated to patient care and concerned the way she felt she had been treated by the Trust at the time.

An independent external investigation into the grievances was conducted and considered by a grievance panel comprising an independent NHS Chief Executive, an independent NHS HR Director, the Deputy Chief Executive and a Non-Executive Director. The majority of grievances were not upheld. The panel did not uphold the grievances related to Dr Cass’ role and responsibilities within the Trust at the time.

The settlement agreement was jointly entered into between Dr Cass and the Trust in order to draw a line under those grievances and to allow both parties to move on. The Trust also wanted to prevent a lengthy employment tribunal incurring costs that could be better spent on patient care.

Any concerns raised by Dr Cass in 2007 while she was at the Trust were acted on. At the time she raised concerns, all Trusts were considering how best to organise their workforce to comply with the European Working Time Directive on junior doctors. This issue was widely covered in the news. This was three years before the settlement agreement with Dr Cass.