Hearing reveals disjointed top management at Royal Hampshire hospital with midwives threatening ” vote of no confidence” in senior staff

The long awaited three week hearing brought by Martyn Pitman, the popular whistleblower obstetrician and gynaecologist, against his dismissal by Hampshire Hospitals NHS Trust began yesterday.

Before even the court met in Southampton demonstrators turned up outside the building with placards expressing support for the doctor with some saying ” whistleblower or witch hunt”. Dr Pitman has a Facebook page ” Friends of Martyn Pitman, which has 1,700 followers – such is his support in Hampshire.

The trust does not consider he was sacked for whistleblowing

Then before the hearing could begin the tribunal’s remote access system crashed under the weight of journalists, including the BBC and the Press Association, and people wanting to report and observe the case. There had been doubt whether remote access would be granted by the judge – as it was said it had been ruled out. But with possibly up to 100 people from prominent medics and other whistleblowers the judge who is hearing the case relented.

As a result apart from a few journalists who managed to get into the small court nobody could hear the morning’s hearing as Dr Pitman started his evidence.

Remote access was restored about 2.15 pm but only 25 people were allowed to use it. Luckily I was one of the 25.

From the afternoon’s session when Dr Pitman was cross questioned by Old Square Chambers lawyer, Mark Sutton for the trust, it became pretty clear that the trust was going for a character assassination of the doctor who had raised patient and staff safety issues and was critical of the way senior management were handling it.

The issue discussed during the afternoon centred around strong misgiving by midwives working at the Winchester Hospital who were calling for a ” vote of no confidence ” against the nursing and midwives management. The consultant took up their cause.

Mr Sutton cited memos from senior staff which portrayed the consultant as an intimidating bully of women blocking the door at one meeting to prevent a senior manager leaving and leaving one senior manager ” crying in the toilet ” after a meeting with him. He was also dubbed ” an agitator” by Mr Sutton for taking up the midwives cause rather than leaving senior managers to sort it out between them.

Dr Pitman pointed out that the allegation he was a blocking a door was completely false as the meeting was in a small room and there were no seats left when he got there , so all he could do was lean against the door.

As for the meeting with another senior manager she had claimed that she had rushed out and went to the toilet to cry after meeting him. His version was this was a ” connivance” and not true. He told the tribunal that ” if this was true I would have been sacked the next day.” Instead he had been invited to further meetings to resolve it. It turned out both complainants were close friends.

And as for the accusation that he was an agitator Dr Pitman said that all he did was to ask for the opinions of all staff from health assistants to senior consultants about what they thought about the midwives concerns.

” I didn’t say what my opinion about it was so as not to influence them. I just asked what he thought.”

He added he had been “humbled ” by the fact that staff trusted him to look into the case.

The hearing continues today.

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