The adjournment on Wednesday of the costs hearing against whistleblower Dr Usha Prasad provided welcome relief for embattled and mentally stressed consultant cardiologist dismissed by the Epsom and St Helier University NHS trust.
But before the case was adjourned by judge Mrs E J McLaren ( and the trust’s claim cut from £180,000 to £24,000) Capsticks had submitted a breakdown of their costs to the judge. They had to do this to get the trust’s costs back and it provides a rare public insight into the length lawyers go to pursue whistleblowers at the trust’s behest.
Remember all the money spent by the trust comes from you the taxpayer and is used by the management of the trust to pursue whistleblowers rather than provide more patient care. And also remember again that in 99.95 per cent of all employment tribunal cases the employee is not asked to pay the employer’s costs.
So the £172,000 bill presented by Capsticks to the tribunal makes very interesting reading. It reveals that at various times no fewer than 20 lawyers and paralegals were involved in countering Dr Usha Prasad various claims. They were paid anything from £82 to £160 an hour. They included two partners on £160 an hour, three in house barristers two on £160 an hour and one on £120 an hour;, two legal directors again on £160 an hour, four senior solicitors on between £130 and £160 an hour; three solicitors on £143 and £120 an hour, two trainee solicitors on £96 an hour and five paralegals on £82 an hour.
Counsel Fees for the barrister Miss Nadia Motraghi totalled £50.775 .These were for a Preliminary Hearing on 30.09.21 and a brief and refresher on a Final Hearing on 01.11.21 for 16 day hearing.
The biggest payout among the 20 lawyers working for Capsticks was to Jessica Blackburn, a senior solicitor who was promoted half way through the case, earned over £47,000 in fees for pursuing Dr Usha Prasad. There is a profile of her on this site here. She was the most combative in her approach , ignoring her doctor’s plea for a postponement and telling her everything she had claimed, including the whistleblower case over an ” avoidable death ” of a heart patient was ” without merit”.
In contrast Dr Usha Prasad could only afford one barrister for part of the time and relied on a friend and fellow consultant Dr Philip Howard to support her pro bono. Otherwise she was a litigant in person facing a team of 20 lawyers.
What is the most disturbing is that the Epsom and St Helier University NHS Trust can ill afford to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayer’s money pursuing a consultant cardiologist. She had to spend 28 months in the office on ” restricted clinical duty” while the trust investigated 43 cases against her. They sent them to the General Medical Council which not only exonerated her but extended her licence to practice without the need for further revalidation. Any sane person would have decided then and there to drop all this and reinstated her after the GMC findings.
Instead they continued what can be only described as a vendetta against her putting her under more and more stress until she was barely able to cope attending another tribunal hearing.
Meanwhile the trust is building up debts – the latest board meeting in July revealed it is £35 million in the red ( up from £27 million in April). Patients waiting for cardiac procedures, mainly imaging, and reviews are having to wait longer and the waiting list is growing – up from 2551 in July 2022 to 2901 in April 2023 -according to the NHS waiting list tracker.
Until this started Dr Usha Prasad who had been there since 2010 had seen 15,000 patients and had no complaints. If she had been reinstated the waiting list might not be so high and more patients would have been treated. And all this taxpayers money would not have been wasted if the trust had decided to use their own hr management to sort this out without going to a tribunal.
Meanwhile the growing deficit has led the trust to plan closing St Helier’s emergency department, maternity services and children’s in patient services provoking fury from residents. Councillor Ross Garrod, leader of Merton council, has called for re-assessment of the impact of this and a campaign group has been set up to fight the proposals. The website is here.
It’s time the trust got its priorities right. Stop spending hundreds of thousands of pounds fighting whistleblowers and spend more time and energy in running your services better.
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Westminster Confidential 
It is now obvious, courtesy of the GMCs findings , that the sacking of Dr Prasad was inappropriate* so Epsom and St Helier University NHS Trust how’s about your senior executives trying some resignations instead?
… starting with yourselves.
* the mildest word I could use.
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Well said. It would be appropriate for them to resign from their fancy posts of MD / CEO or Deputy CEO – all involved in conducting an internal “kangaroo court” investigation then dismissing the doctor.
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Can individual Executives of a NHS Hospital Trust be reported to the Nursing Midwifery Council?
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Medical Managers be reported to the GMC. Two from Epsom ST Helier have been. The complaint was dismissed.
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May they should be re-sent with further evidence. There should be some accountability. Otherwise such bullies will continue to ruin innocent people who blow the whistle on patient safety. GMC and DoH should wake up.
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Yes. Medical managers can be reported to the GMC
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Yes
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I ask this, because due to their action in sacking Dr Prasad they have deprived patients of the urgent care she would have provided. Because of her extended loss to the NHS they have also caused distress to both patients and their families. Worse still is that the probability of their action is more than likely to have caused patient deaths or severe outcomes for those patients who are already held on interminable NHS waiting lists. If a clinician had withdrawn care for no reason, he or she would rightly be facing a judgement of their peers or worse, a jury. Comments from the Minister of Health should be sort in relation to this case
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There is no limit to what the NHS is prepared to spend to protect its own reputation over patient safety. A hefty six figure sum was spent on this cover up by Derbyshire NHS Trust, funds the patients can ill afford to lose.Meanwhile, their legal firm, Weightmans, just announced an increase in total income of 5% to £103.2m & increase in net profit of 25% to £11.3m and renewal of their multi million pound contract with the government to defend the NHS against clinical negligence claims. For tips on how Weightmans win these claims and achieve profits by deception, using bogus experts and hired guns, tampering with expert evidence & perverting the course of justice, see point 34 onward: https://patientcomplaintdhcftdotcom.wordpress.com/
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Just seen on MSM TV comments from the Head of the NHS raising and pushing the proposal that Heath Care Executives should face hearings like theie Clinicians when things go seriously wrong. Barclay wants to wait on these proposals until after the Letby Inquiry. Again the Prasad case now needs be on MSM and to given to the Health Minister who should do something about Epsom and St Helier before things get even worse at that Trust.
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Nice little earner for Capsticks people. I can’t see them using a food bank any time soon.
On a more serious point, every MP needs to see your blog. I have forwarded it to mine
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The chief executive should be referred for a disciplinary hearing for this witch-hunt and his punitive behaviour towards whistle-blower! Can’t see how he/she can sustain their position having overseen such a wastage of taxpayers money!
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Since there is zero accountability, these executives know they can get away with anything they like, including 20 lawyers and barristers to deal with 1 doctor. They mis-use taxpayers money and pay these greedy lawyers. As we have seen from other cases too some greedy lawyers (lacking ethics and moral value) will do anything for money including crushing innocent doctors who whistle blew. These greedy lawyers should be referred to SRA and the bar council for misconduct?
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http://www.thefire.org/news/maine-hospital-threatens-defamation-lawsuit-over-15-year-olds-changeorg-petition
It is insane worldwide the length these hospitals networks will go to 🛑 the truth getting out.
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The trust is shown to be racist as majority Caucasian administrators pursue a non Caucasian with more verve, aggression, alacrity and money than they would pursue a Caucasian health care professional AND are also shown to be chauvinistic as mainly male administrators pursue a female health care professional with similar verve, aggression, alacrity and money than they would pursue a male health care professional.
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Question is what is the reason for this employer to hire so many lawyers?
It is noted that 20 legal staff including lawyers from Capsticks alone.
They also hired numerous lawyers from Bevan Brittan (few already mentioned in your previous blogs) & barristers from Old Square and some other chambers – so, the total will be more than 30 lawyers & barristers vs 1 whistle-blower doctor – this is unthinkable !?
Most likely they are desperate to hide something – otherwise why would anyone need to hire so many lawyers to crush a doctor? As per duty of candour, doctors should speak up when they see their patients are being harmed. It is also fine to speak up about discrimination or poor behaviour of the employer.
Who is approving all this spend? Who is responsible for asking those questions – is the CEO or deputy CEO aware of and approve such spend (waste of tax-payers money)?
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I too was shafted by Capsticks! And others! I was lied to by one of their former partners, Ed Weaver, who said that the NHS brute who banged on my door, verbally abused and threatened me, and pretended he was a paramedic in January 2020, was an Emergency Care Responder and that his (illegal) visit to the sheltered housing building where I lived would not necessarily be registered on the EEAST call out system, which everyone else has said is utterly ridiculous! I tried taking it all to court but my case was struck out by some grumpy old judge because I missed the document submission date,! By 2 days! And even there both the Defendants barristers lied to and about me, and tried chucking me under the bus! The judge actually made a thinly veiled threat and muttered that if I ‘brought more agro’ to the courts by submitting another claim he would enforce a costs order against me, which was made by EEASTs counsel. Yet what’s really interesting here is that my landlords, Anchor Housing, the other Defendant, who had the most to lose, did not apply for costs. I suspect this was because they knew the whole case would definitely be heard in open court, which of course they didn’t want as all of their employees criminal actions and civil wrongs against me would come out! Well it’s too late for that now, because I’m posting what they did all over the internet where and when I can! It is truly shocking what both Anchor and EEAST did to me AND think they’ve got away with!
Well, we’ll see said the Zen Master, we’ll see. From Boadicea who in Truth will Triumph! AKA Sarah
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