West Suffolk hospital chair resigns after whistleblowing scandal

The chair of West Suffolk hospital trust has resigned over a whistleblowing scandal exposed by the Guardian, as fresh questions are asked over why the trust continues to pay at least £270,000 a year to its former chief executive.

Sheila Childerhouse was criticised by an independent NHS report for her failure to question senior executives who had hounded Dr Patricia Mills after Mills had raised concerns about a colleague seen injecting himself with drugs while on duty.

Childerhouse has announced that she will step down in January after consultants at the Bury St Edmunds hospital told her last week that her position was “untenable”.

The NHS report, by Christine Outram, found that Childerhouse failed to take up Mills’ concerns when she was sent a “confidential” email in 2018 expressing alarm that the self-injecting doctor was being allowed to continue to treat patients.

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Source: The Guardian, 23 December 2021