Victimised for blowing the whistle on NHS chiefs: Man who defied £500,000 gagging order faces financial ruin
- Gary Walker was paid £500,000 hush money when he left his hospital trust
- He has defied gag to speak out against NHS bosses
- Now the health service is trying to get the money back
- MPs have backed the whistleblower
- Mr Walker was chief executive of a trust under scrutiny for death rates
Whistleblower: Gary Walker, former chief executive for United Lincolnshire Hospitals NHS trust, has defied a legal gag to speak out against NHS management
An NHS whistleblower said last night he faced ruin for telling the truth about patient safety.
Gary Walker was paid £500,000 to keep quiet after he was removed as chief executive of the United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust.
But this week he broke his silence about a care scandal that may have cost the lives of 670 patients.
In doing so Mr Walker ignored an email from NHS-funded lawyers ordering him to respect the terms of the gagging order in 2011.
Warning phone calls followed the letter when it became
clear he planned to tell BBC Radio 4’s Today programme about his ordeal.
He was told: ‘Should you breach the term relating to confidentiality, you will immediately repay to the trust, on demand, all sums paid under this agreement in full.’
Refusing to be cowed, Mr Walker gave interviews to the BBC and the Daily Mail. In them, he attacked both the current head of the NHS, Sir David Nicholson, and one of his key sidekicks, Dame Barbara Hakin.
Mr Walker said Sir David, who faced calls to quit last week for his failure to stop the scandal of high death rates at Stafford Hospital, had been warned about problems in Lincolnshire in 2009 but was ‘not interested in patient safety’.
Instead, Mr Walker claims, he ordered that whistleblowers on the trust’s board who had raised concerns should be sacked.
He also accused Dame Barbara of halting a review into worrying high mortality rates at the trust. Staff were also told ‘targets must be met regardless of demand’.
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