From L to R: Alex Whitfield, Hampshire Ben Travis, Lewisham Daniel Elkeles London Ambulance

Three of the top 50 NHS chief executives chosen by a panel set up by the Health Services Journal in 2024 as the best people to run the NHS have been involved in attempting to cover up patient deaths and persecuting doctors and nurses who raised the issues.

One of the top three NHS awards went to Daniel Elkeles, as chief executive of London Ambulance Service Trust and is now chief executive of NHS Providers. He was chief executive of the Epsom and St Helier Trust when Usha Prasad, a cardiologist, reported the ” avoidable death ” of a heart patient. He told her to drop her case at an employment tribunal or face an internal disciplinary hearing which led to her being sacked.

I have since been told that Mr Elkeles was involved in an alleged cover up at the London Ambulance Service when a paramedic was suspended during the stressful period of the pandemic. He had alleged bullying, Elkeles said he would investigate but got the person to sign a non disclosure agreement. When it was signed it is said any investigation was dropped.

The second chief executive is Alex Whitfield who heads Hampshire Hospitals Foundation Trust, was involved in the sacking of Dr Martyn Pitman, a well respected obstetrician and gynaecologist, who raised patient safety issues in the already nationally stressed maternity services. The former oil executive is rated the 15th best chief executive.

The lack of care at the hospital in Winchester led to one mother and a baby dying, but Alex Whitfield used the tribunal to claim that Dr Pitman was ” putting patients at risk” rather than supporting the doctor and midwives who were helping patients. Lawyers for the trust monstered Dr Pitman claiming he was a bully for raising these issues.

Julie Dawes, the chief nursing officer at the trust, who also pursued Dr Pitman ,has just been awarded an MBE for services to nursing in the King’s Birthday Honours List.

The third award winner is Ben Travis, chief executive of Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust, which the Care Quality Commission, say ” requires improvement.”

Ben Travis was heavily involved in the 2022 tribunal hearings brought by Dr Chris Day, who has fought the trust for 10 years after he raised important patient safety concerns that became associated with two avoidable deaths  in the intensive care unit of Woolwich Hospital, run by the trust. The 2022 tribunal ruled against him despite evidence given by Ben Travis which shown to be untrue, the destruction of 90,000 emails during the hearing and the discovery of fresh documents .which should have been released by the trust to him to help his case.

The results of the last hearing is up for appeal on six grounds next week. He won the right to appeal that some of the findings of the judgment were perverse, that the judgment failed to draw any inferences from the destruction of 90,000 emails and the failure to provide documents that would have helped Dr Day’s case. This in particular followed the disclosure in documents that under oath the chief executive, Ben Travis gave an untrue account about a board meeting and had hidden he had contacted other trust chief executives about Dr Day.

Yet Mr Travis won the award on his personal performance over the last year; the performance of the organisation he led, given the circumstances it is in; and the contribution made to the wider health and social care system.

Award for Diversity

At the same time the trust has won a second award for its equality, diversity and inclusiveness despite its NHS staff report showing that it has a below average rating for the fair promotion of ethnic minority staff and for racial discrimination inside the trust and from members of the public.

The panel who decided the awards for the best chief executives included Dr Rosie Benneyworth, chief executive, Health Service Safety Investigations Body:Steve Brine, former Tory MP for Winchester and former chair, Commons Health and Social Care Committee,; Matthew Taylor, head of the NHS Confederation;Sir Julian Hartley, former chief executive of NHS Providers; Patricia Marquis, executive director for England, Royal College of Nursing and Dr Vish Sharma, chair, BMA’s consultant committee.

It is inconceivable that many of them did not know about the whistleblower cases. Dr Chris Day’s case is high profile; Dr Martyn Pitman’s case was in the national press and Steve Brine was his local MP. Usha Prasad’s case was a long running one.

There is another issue which is worth pursuing in a later blog – how ethnic minorities are treated in the NHS and the level of racial discrimination and whether black and Asian people have fair promotion prospects. Lewisham and Greenwich NHS Trust is not alone