HEE Are At it Again in a Whistleblowing Case

Health Education England - an agency directly answerable to Health Secretary, Matt Hancock - are using against me the same law firm, Hill Dickinson, that they used against Dr Chris Day to argue the nations doctors out of statutory whistleblowing protection to try and stop his case being heard. Like the Dr Chris Day case complex legal arguments are being used to try and prevent the actual facts of my whistleblowing case having to be dealt with. This provides a mechanism to freely destroy the careers of doctors who speak up when they see patients at risk, evades Parliament’s intention to protect whistleblowers, and is bad for patient safety. 

In my case public money is funding;

HEE want to argue that there is no agency relationship between HEE and educational supervisors

HEE's solicitors, Hill Dickinson conceded, “the matter to be determined is potentially of national importance to our client and could affect its relationship with thousands of educators across England.” 

The BMA refused to support the case so I am looking to crowdfunding.

Dr Chris Day commented on my case,

Claire's case is another example of Health Education England trying to undermine and complicate  doctors' basic employment rights. In this case a doctor's right to have their educational supervisor (that has power over their career) subject to employment law and accountable to an employment tribunal. HEE should simply come to the Tribunal and defend the case on the facts and not waste public money on an attempt to pass the buck.

My Story

I was a Paediatric Registrar ST8 near completion of training in London to be a General Paediatrician, working under HEE (Health Education England) in an NHS Accident and Emergency department. I raised concerns about safety with Educational Supervisors.

As a result I suffered adverse consequences from Educational Supervisors and the Head of School in Paediatrics and my training was terminated in this my last post before I was due to gain CCT (Certification of Completion of Training in Paediatrics).

After I made the disclosure I was taken off nights being told by the Educational supervisor that I was 'over cautious'. I wrote and went to my Head of School for guidance and was told that this  would not affect my training to achieve CCT,  yet,  at the same time she wrote in internal HEE emails (released to me much later following a subject access request) about my receiving an outcome 4 (release from training). 

This crowdfund is to raise funds for a hearing in which HEE’s solicitors want to argue that there is no agency relationship between HEE and educational supervisors, that HEE are not liable for any of the actions of educational supervisors irrespective of the detriment to a trainee by an educational supervisor. In Dr Day’s case, HEE falsely argued that they had nothing to do with doctors’ employment so they were not subject to whistleblowing law. Now in my case, after conceding to Dr Day and the medical profession that we are legally protected, HEE are trying to argue that Educational Supervisors -  the daily interface between  HEE and doctors - are not part of that process. It’s like offering legal protection against a bad surgeon, but excluding problems caused by the surgeon’s scalpel from the protection policy!

I need your support: please contribute and share this page now!

HEE’s solicitor want this matter decided in a 1 day hearing before going to my final hearing which had been scheduled to start on the 11th March 2021. I will update my backers with our legal arguments in due course.

Thank you for your support  in this matter - it truly will have an impact for trainees and their relationships with educational supervisors and HEE, allowing doctors to raise concerns about safety without fear of detriment and improving safety for our patients.