NHS patients put at risk by ‘sham investigations’, says ex-CEO of hospital

Patients are being put at risk by NHS bosses launching “sham investigations” into whistleblowers to shut down concerns, a former hospital chief executive who won a £1.4m bullying claim has said.

Dr Susan Gilby took over as chief executive at the Countess of Chester hospital in 2018 after it was rocked by the Lucy Letby case. She was awarded the payout – one of the biggest in NHS history – last month after a tribunal ruled she had been unfairly dismissed after raising concerns about alleged bullying and harassment by the chair of the hospital board.

An employment judge found that board members of the hospital conspired to unfairly exclude her and deleted documents when she launched legal action.

Speaking to the Guardian, Gilby said she had been “traumatised” by the experience and made to feel like a “pariah in the NHS” for refusing to drop her concerns in return for a “non-job”.

“I feel desperately saddened that my NHS career has come to an end in the way it has. It’s had a really deep psychological impact [and] probably taken at least 10 years of working life away from me,” she said.

“It’s been very isolating. People walk away when they realise you’re not willing to play by the NHS playbook and accept the offer to get you out of the situation. Doing that has resulted in being made to feel that I’m a pariah in the NHS.”

Tribunal judges found that Ian Haythornthwaite, the chair of the Countess of Chester hospital NHS foundation trust, worked with three other senior figures to “engineer her dismissal” after Gilby raised a whistleblowing complaint about his “bullying and harassment”.

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Source: The Guardian, 1 February 2026