By Pamela McGowan Health reporter

Published at 11:54, Tuesday, 30 September 2008

A HIGH-PROFILE NHS manager has slammed Cumbrian hospital bosses over their treatment of a senior nurse.

Sarina Saiger: Claims she was victim of a campaign of harassment

Ken Jarrold told a tribunal yesterday that he believes a culture of bullying and harassment was allowed to develop among managers of the Cumberland Infirmary in Carlisle and Whitehaven’s West Cumberland Hospital.

Mr Jarrold, the former chief executive of County Durham/Tees Valley Strategic Health Authority, who now works as a senior management consultant, was giving evidence on behalf of Sarina Saiger, who has accused hospital bosses of racial discrimination.

The mixed race former assistant director of nursing claims senior managers at the North Cumbria University Hospitals NHS Trust subjected her to a campaign of harassment and victimisation, leading to her unfair dismissal.

However, the trust denies the allegations claiming she is a serial claimant against the NHS and made the whole thing up to win compensation.

Yesterday Mr Jarrold, who has been a personal career mentor to Dr Saiger for several years, took to the witness stand at the hearing – now in its fourth week at Quayside House in Newcastle.

He said he first became aware of the problems in December 2005, when she told him how her boss, now-retired nursing director Bruce Skilbeck, had made racially-motivated comments towards her during a recent appraisal – claiming he told her she was the “wrong culture and colour” to work in the trust.

Mr Jarrold, who helped draw up the current Code of Conduct for NHS Managers, said he advised that she speak to Peter Scott, the trust’s then deputy chief executive, who he held in high regard.

However, he said he gradually became disappointed at the way her initial complaint, and subsequent complaints, were dealt, both by Mr Scott and his colleagues.

Mr Jarrold, who was awarded the CBE in 1997, slammed the trust for failing to bring in independent investigators, as is suggested in the code of conduct when a staff complaint involves a senior executive.

“The problem is that if you have an organisation where senior people allow a culture of bullying and harassment to develop, it’s impossible for a fair investigation to be conducted by anyone in the organisation,” he told the tribunal.

He said it is natural for a chief executive to get close to their directors, which is why a neutral perspective is needed in such circumstances. But he said the fact this didn’t happen implies that the trust was not willing to open itself up to independent scrutiny.

But trust barrister Shirley Bothroyd put it to Mr Jarrold that, as he had not spoken to any of the trust bosses, he was forming his opinions solely from Dr Saiger’s version of events – which she said was both biased and untrue.

She alleged that Dr Saiger had lied to him as part of her own campaign against the trust, in which she went on to make a series of highly damaging professional and personal allegations about individual managers in the trust.

She put it to Mr Jarrold that in doing this she was breaching several areas of his code of conduct, which stresses that NHS managers should respect and value all colleagues, be honest, act with integrity and work as part of a team.

Mr Jarrald said although it was possible Dr Saiger was lying, he was confident that this was not the case.

“I think we have to ask ourselves what led Sarina to reach these conclusions, and that was the way in which she was treated,” he explained

“I have formed a careful judgement having worked with this individual over a number of years and having listened to her account of things. She is someone I have come to trust and respect.

“In my view this was an organisation where people had forgotten right and wrong and regarded themselves as beyond touching. They thought they could do whatever they wanted.”

Miss Bothroyd said even if this was the case, it did not justify her calling for non-executive directors – most of who she had never met – to be removed from office.

But Mr Jarrold said that as the non-executive team’s role is to oversee the good governance of the trust, he felt that they were accountable. “Did they allow a culture of bullying and harassment to exist? My view is that they did. And if they did that, then they are responsible for it and should answer for it,” he added.

n Yesterday the tribunal was also due to hear from another of Dr Saiger’s witnesses, matron Mary Carruthers.

However, despite her being formally ordered to attend the hearing in Newcastle, it later emerged that she was too ill to attend.

As a result it was agreed to release her and instead disregard a previous statement she had made.

PMcGowan@cngroup.co.uk

Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk