Trust lawyers try to turn his patient safety claims against them against him

Dr Martyn Pitman

Mark Sutton, the leading lawyer for Hampshire Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust, tried to turn Dr Pitman’s patient safety complaints against his employer in both the maternity wards and the midwifery service against him in the third day of the hearing.

The former Old Square head of chambers highlighted a letter from the trust’s chief executive when Dr Pitman was trying to rejoin the trust after being suspended for two years. This followed a meeting of senior managers that decided that he could not come back because he posed a ” risk to patient safety “. Dr Pitman again had not seen the full minutes of the meeting.

Previously the KC had highlighted a disputed serious treatment case in the maternity ward- where Dr Pitman challenged a colleague and blamed the person for not being competent to do the job which led to the death of a patient.

Mr Sutton claimed that this led to a row in a hospital corridor which Dr Pitman said did not happen and was sorted out at a meeting in his office.

The lawyer also said that patient safety was at risk in the ward he managed because his relationship with the consultant team was dysfunctional. This was categorically denied by Dr Pitman who said he had ” eight years of positive relationships with his colleagues”.

His lawyer, Jack Mitchell, a junior barrister from Old Square Chambers, then pointed out that Mark Sutton had missed out a passage in one of the documents that showed Dr Pitman, far from not being concerned about patient safety, had warned the then associate director of midwifery Ms Janice MacKenzie of changes needed in the maternity ward to avoid deaths. A week later one baby had died and another had serious problems and no action had been taken by her.

Dr Putman ended the cross examination feeling weepy . The Judge Jonathan Gray, asked him why he seemed to be blaming everyone in the health trust for his predicament. He said this because every time he took issues up with the hospital hoping it would be resolved at a higher level including at board level there had been no attempt to do so.

Later Dr Michael Heard a retired consultant who worked alongside Dr Pitman defended his stance at the hospital. He said Dr Pitman was ” direct not rude” and ” passionate about his job “. He said he had good relations with Janice Mackenzie – who has accused Dr Pitman of forcing her to leave a meeting to cry in the toilet – and could not comment on some of the accusations brought by her because he was not there.

He described him as ” direct to the point and put his main points in writing in bold ” but did not use expletives. He said his style was “challenging and well researched.”

He also confirmed Dr Pitman’s main point that the maternity and gynaecology wards had been short staffed and all the consultants had been frustrated about it for years because nothing was done about it by the trust.

The trust’s lawyer, Mark Sutton, also raised whether a letter he wrote to the trust about Dr Pitman had been prompted by him. Dr Heard said he had done without his knowledge in the hope that matters could be sorted out informally.

” By then matters had gone too far”, he said. The tribunal continues tomorrow.