Whistleblowing and Safeguarding Concerns at the Tavistock and Portman
Whistleblowing and Safeguarding Concerns at the Tavistock and Portman
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Latest: Oct. 24, 2024
Costs Application and potential Appeal
To: My Crowd Funders
I write to update you that on Friday 18 October I issued a costs application against the Tavistock. I will let you know when this application is heard in the tribunal. Hopefully I…
Read moreMy name is Dr Lynne Amidon and I am a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist and Team Manager working for the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust. I qualified as a Child Psychotherapist in 1999 and have spent the past 24 years of my life working with abused and neglected children trying to ensure they are given the best care, protection and safeguarding whilst under the auspices of the State system.
I believe that all children have the right to a decent level of care, including when the State becomes involved in their care and deciding who can care for them.
I work as part of the Complex Assessment Team (CAT) and am responsible to the Service Manager of the Camden CAMHS.
My role and the role of my team is to provide expert witness assessments and evidence to the Family Court when social services are involved in child care proceedings.
I am raising funds to bring legal claims against the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust in the employment tribunal. Some of these legal claims may involve whistleblowing claims and discrimination. My claim centers around my belief that I have been subjected to detriments because I brought concerns to my employers about child safeguarding.
What is Safeguarding?
NHS trusts and similar health organisations must work with other internal departments and external agencies to ensure there are 'root and branch' systems to keep patients and service users safe. This means responding to patient/service users' personal experiences, also including their environmental, familial, community/peer circumstances and sometimes any of these domains could require the intervention of other professionals in different agencies. Safeguarding children and young people also concerns ensuring there is a sufficiently healthy culture in organisations that does not contribute to harming the people who use and deliver NHS services.
I hope to raise an initial £2,500 so that I can pay my legal team to lodge a claim in the employment tribunal and to consider any defence the Tavistock may file.
I will then hope to raise further funds in order to bring the case to trial. I have set the Crowdfunder to £50,000 and hopefully that will cover my legal fees. The normal rules of Crowd Funders apply. I cannot guarantee that I will win my case however I will give it my best shot.
I am trying to ensure that in future staff at the Tavistock are free to bring whistleblowing claims to the Tavistock without being subject to detriments.
Within a short period of time, we will be issuing my claim against the Tavistock. There are very short time limits in the employment tribunal.
I am instructing Elliot Hammer of Branch Austin McCormick LLP who represented Sonia Appleby in her successful whistleblowing claim against the Tavistock in 2021. A link to the publicity in that case is https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58453250
Ms Lynne Amidon, PhD -- Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist, BA, MA, MA, MPhil, PHD, MACP
Ms Amidon is a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist and she gained her qualification as a child psychotherapist in 1999. She has extensive experience of working psychotherapeutically with looked after children, adolescents and parents and she has worked as an expert witness for the family courts since 2001. Ms Amidon has also worked over the past 20 years as a clinical organisational consultant to a number of residential therapeutic units, both for adolescents and for primary aged children. She has worked as a clinician in a variety of settings, both in CAMHS and inpatient services (including the Tavistock Mulberry Bush Day Unit, the Adolescent Department at the Tavistock Clinic and the Beacon Centre at Edgware Hospital, an adolescent inpatient unit).
She has undertaken family assessments for the Courts as a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist at the Monroe Young Family Service between 2001 and 2010; as the Clinical Director of the Monroe Young Family Centre from 2003-2005; as a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist at the Monroe Family Assessment Service from 2010-2011; working privately as an expert witness from 2011 to the present; as a Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist in MALT at Camden Local Authority from 2015-2016; and as the Team Manager of Complex Assessment Team which provides assessment and work with families in pre-proceedings, in proceedings and post proceedings from 2016, for Camden Local Authority.
She has supervised a wide range of students and taught on many courses at the Tavistock Clinic since the late 1990’s, including the MA and Doctorate level courses for child psychotherapy trainees, social workers, psychologists, SPR’s and teachers. She works in private practice with children, adolescents and their parents.
Qualifications: Ms Amidon has an M Psych in Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy with Children, Young People and Parents and an PG Diploma in Observational Studies and the Application of Psychoanalytical Concepts to Work with Children, Young People and Families, both gained at the Tavistock Clinic. She completed a PhD in Modern European History before training as a Child Psychotherapist. Ms Amidon is a Member of the Association of Child Psychotherapists (ACP).
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Dr Lynne Amidon
Oct. 24, 2024
Costs Application and potential Appeal
To: My Crowd Funders
I write to update you that on Friday 18 October I issued a costs application against the Tavistock. I will let you know when this application is heard in the tribunal. Hopefully I will be successful in this application, even though I didn’t win my claim.
In the meantime, my lawyers are still considering the judgment and whether to appeal against it. The judgment is available onlinehttps://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/67050b42e84ae1fd8592efa9/Mrs_L_Amidon_v__Tavistock_and_Portman_NHS_Trust_-_2200373-2023.pdf
You might like to know that the Time has published an updating article https://www.thetimes.com/uk/society/article/white-whistleblower-who-alleged-racism-by-tavistock-director-loses-case-089xg72g6
I will keep you updated in relation to my appeal.
Dr Lynne Amidon
24.10.2024
Dr Lynne Amidon
Oct. 14, 2024
My Judgment is now available
To: My Crowd Funders
I just wanted to let you know the judgment in my case is up on the employment tribunal judgment website:
Mrs L Amidon v Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust: 2200373/2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
My legal team are looking into an appeal and I will let you know if and when we lodge an appeal in the Employment Appeal Tribunal.
I would like to thank you all for your continued support.
Best
Dr Lynne Amidon
14.10.2024
Dr Lynne Amidon
Oct. 4, 2024
Unfortunately unsuccessful
To: My Crowd Funders
It is with sadness that I write to tell you I was not successful in my whistleblowing claim against the Tavistock.
We recently received the judgment and my legal team are considering it.
The tribunal did find I made protected disclosures, but, and this is the important part, found I hadn’t suffered any detriments because of those. In addition, the tribunal found I hadn’t been racially discriminated against.
The judgment isn’t yet up on the employment tribunal decisions website but will be shortly.
At the moment I am taking some time out for my family, but will meet with my legal team to consider whether any appeal is possible.
I would like to thank everybody who supported me for their generosity and kind messages of support. I still have legal bills to pay and to fund looking into an appeal so if you are minded I would be very grateful for any further help, but only anything you can comfortably manage.
Dr Lynne Amidon
May 8, 2024
Update 4 - Roster of Witnesses
To: My Crowd Funders
My trial starts on Monday 13 May 2024, but it is a reading day for the employment tribunal and so no attendance by the parties.
The proceedings will get going on Tuesday 14 May 2024. Tribunal Tweets will be reporting on proceedings.
Tavistock’s witnesses
Mr Hector Bayayi (Former Divisional Director for GIDS)
Dr Sally Hodges (Clinical Chief Operating Officer at Tavistock)
Clare Scott (Chief Nursing Officer at Tavistock)
Patricia Pemberton (Social Worker, Line Manager or Complex Assessment Team, Line Manager for the Looked After Children and Refugees)
Helen Farrington (Former Interim Chief People Officer)
My witnesses
Sonia Appleby (Former Child Safeguarding Officer) (dependent on outcome of our application for a witness summons)
Dr Lynne Amidon (Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist)
Dr Dan McQueen (Consultant Child and Adolescent Child Psychiatrist, Consultant Adult Psychiatrist and Medical Psychotherapist)
Judy Shuttleworth (Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist, Former Visiting lecturer at Tavistock, Former Chair of the ACP)
I will keep you updated as we approach the trial and throughout.
Dr Lynne Amidon
08.05.2024
Dr Lynne Amidon
April 30, 2024
Update 3 - Trial in 13 days!
Update 3 – Trial in 13 days
Hello to my supporters:
It is now less than 2 weeks to go to my trial against the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust. The trial starts on Monday 13 May 2024 and will finish on Friday 24 May 2024.
My case is a whistleblowing case. My case is that I reported safeguarding concerns to Sonia Appleby at the Tavistock Clinic and because of doing that the Tavistock retaliated against me.
Although I am very concerned about being cross examined by their legal team, but I must hold firm and do what is right to seek justice.
It has been an immense help when facing the full might of an NHS Trust in litigation to read your messages of support.
I owe all of you so much for your generosity, kindness and support.
Dr Lynne Amidon
30.04.2024
Dr Lynne Amidon
Feb. 21, 2024
Update 2 - approaching trial
Update 2 – Up coming trial of my matter
Dear Supporters
I write to update my crowd funder and to tell you that my trial is almost here.
My trial has been set down for 10 days in the Central London Employment Tribunal from 13 May 2024 to 24 May 2024. It will be an in-person hearing and I do hope for a large attendance from the public and the press so that they can understand what has happened at the Tavistock Clinic and what I say has been done to me.
My claim is a whistleblowing claim. That means that I say I made protected disclosures to the Tavistock (about child safety and safeguarding) and I claim that in retaliation for making these protected disclosures, the Tavistock did things to me (“detriments”).
In my Particulars of Claim I have asked the Court to find:
a) Institutional collusion between the Tavistock and a local authority to suspend referrals to my Complex Assessment Team because of my protected disclosures – in other words because they were unhappy that I had raised concerns about child safety;
b) That I was placed under a clandestine review by the Tavistock, to keep investigating me without my knowledge and without any terms of reference;
c) That the Tavistock obfuscated the route to reporting safeguarding concerns, in other words to either prevent me from making further safeguarding concerns or to make it more difficult, or to delay any investigation into them;
d) Refusing and / or delaying investigating my safeguarding concerns;
e) Restarting an investigation in June 2022 that had closed in October 2021, shouting and being hostile and aggressive towards me in interviews and spending some 18 months investigating me when it should have been over in 4 weeks.
The Tavistock Clinic denies all of this of course and only an employment tribunal can decide who is telling the truth.
I have also brought a race claim, that I was treated less favourably because I was white.
I am used to appearing in Court because I am part of the Complex Assessment Team which did family assessments for Court at the Tavistock Clinic but of course I am still nervous because this time it is my case and everything rests on the evidence and what happens in Court.
I hope that justice is done and I believe I have a very good case.
If you are able to support me I would be very grateful. Supporting me may just mean sharing my case on social media and talking about my case. My legal team tells me that you can attend the employment tribunal on the day of the trial and that the trial bundle will be available.
Thank you for your support.
Lynne Amidon
21 February 2024
Dr Lynne Amidon
Jan. 23, 2023
Update 1 - I have issued my claim!
Update 1 - I have issued my claim!
To: My Crowd Funders
I would like to thank my Crowd Funders for a strong start to my campaign. I am immensely grateful for the financial support but also the lovely messages that you have posted which provide a source of strength and encouragement.
Being a whistleblower is incredibly difficult especially when, as I believe, I have been subjected to detriments due to raising them.
I am part of the Complex Assessment Team at the Tavistock. That means that we have to provide an expert opinion on aspects of a case which the local authority have brought before a Court. These expert opinions can be on a wide range of subjects, such as the suitability of parents to care for their children. I have carried out this role for more than 20 years.
My case relates to child safeguarding concerns that I have raised in relation to these types of cases. I believe that due to raising these concerns I suffered detriments by my employer. My case also relates to discrimination against me as a white woman, which I believe I would not have suffered had I not been white.
Last week with your help I was able to issue my claim in the employment tribunal.
That means the Tavistock will now have to prepare a defence to my claims.
I will keep you updated throughout my case but I wanted to ensure that you were aware that my claim has now been issued.
I hope you all have a very pleasant week.
Dr Lynne Amidon
23.01.2023
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