17.05.16
Southern Health governors defy chair to vote on removing executive board members
The dispute between the Southern Health board of governors and the NHS Improvement-appointed chair Tim Smart has worsened as governors announced they were proceeding with a meeting he had cancelled.
In a LinkedIn blog post, Peter Bell, one of the governors, said that the meeting, which includes a motion for a vote of no confidence in the current board, is taking place at 11.45am today at Lyndhurst Community Centre despite Smart’s opposition.
NHS Improvement exercised their powers to appoint Smart as chair after a CQC inspection found that Southern, which has been the subject of controversy since Connor Sparrowhawk, an 18-year-old patient with learning disabilities, died in its care in 2013, is still failing to guarantee patient safety or learn from patient deaths.
Bell said: “Enough taxpayers' money has been needlessly wasted by this trust in defending the indefensible. So I have decided that, instead of spending yet more money in Court action, let's just take direct action.”
At the meeting, the governors will vote on a motion, proposed by Bell, for the non-executive board to remove the following executive board members from their posts.
- Chief executive Katrina Percy
- Medical director Dr Lesley Stevens
- Chief operating officer and director of performance, quality and safety Dr Chris Gordon
- Non-executive director Trevor Spiers
- Non-executive director Malcolm Berryman
Luciana Berger MP, the shadow mental health minister, and Suella Fernandes, the Conservative MP for Fareham, both called for Percy’s resignation in a recent House of Commons debate.
Mark Aspinall, a former governor of the trust who resigned last month, launched a Go Fund Me campaign to raise money to help cover the cost of the meeting, which reached its £406 target in 23 hours.
According to Tweets from the meeting reported, it is being attended by four Southern Health governors - Bell, Arthur Monks, John Green and Richard Mandunya - and almost 300 members of the public.
Smart told the South Today BBC News programme last night that he was “beginning to develop a strategy” to improve the quality of care at the trust. He said he would give more details following a discussion with the board.
In an open letter to Smart, also published on LinkedIn, Bell said that there were no grounds for judicial review of the governors’ actions, threatened by Smart.
He said NHS Improvement had “effectively bypassed” the governors by appointing Smart and called the new chair’s treatment of the governors “deplorable”.
He wrote: “The council of governors is to be the ‘critical friend’ of the Board. But friendship requires some element of trust and respect – from both sides. Treat a council of governors with contempt and they are very unlikely to ever be your friend – critical or otherwise.”
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