Hansard of Oral Evidence: Medical Staff 05 Dec 2012
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S T A N D I N G C O M M I T T E E O F T Y N W A L D C O U R T O F F I C I A L R E P O R T R E C O R T Y S O I K O I L B I N G V E A Y N T I N V A A L P R O C E E D I N G S D A A L T Y N PUBLIC ACCOUNTS MEDICAL STAFF INVESTIGATION HANSARD Douglas, Wednesday, 5th December 2012 PP163/12 PAC-MS, No. 1 All published Official Reports can be found on the Tynwald website www.tynwald.org.im/Official Papers/Hansards/Please select a year: Published by the Office of the Clerk of Tynwald, Legislative Buildings, Finch Road, Douglas, Isle of Man, IM1 3PW. © High Court of Tynwald, 2012 STANDING COMMITTEE, WEDNESDAY, 5th DECEMBER 2012 Members Present: Chairman: Mr A L Cannan MHK Mrs B J Cannell MHK Mr C G Corkish MBE MHK Clerk: Mr J D C King Mr D M W Butt MLC and Mr L I Singer MHK declared an interest and took no part in the proceedings. Business Transacted Page Procedural.................................................................................................................................................3 Evidence of Mr D Killip, Chief Executive, Department of Health and Mrs B Scott, Hospital Manager, Department of Health ........................................................3 The Committee adjourned at 4.30 p.m. _________________________________________________________________ 2 PAC-MS STANDING COMMITTEE, WEDNESDAY, 5th DECEMBER 2012 Standing Committee of Tynwald on Public Accounts Medical Staff Investigation The Committee sat in public at 3.30 p.m. in the Legislative Council Chamber, Legislative Buildings, Douglas [MR CANNAN in the Chair] Procedural The Chairman (Mr A L Cannan): Good afternoon and welcome to this public meeting of the Public Accounts Committee. I am Alfred Cannan MHK and I chair this Committee. The other members of the Committee are Mr Geoff Corkish MHK and Mrs Brenda Cannell MHK. 5 Please switch off your mobile phones and do not just put them on silent – they interfere with our recording equipment. Also, for the benefit of Hansard, I shall be making sure that we do not have two people speaking at once. In February 2012, the case of Dr Dirk Hoehmann was referred to the Social Affairs Policy Review Committee by Mr Alex Downie MLC. Tynwald and its Committees cannot comment on 10 matters which are the preserve of the judiciary, i.e. decisions made in relation to an individual case; however, it is within the Public Accounts Committee’s remit to look at a case to see what lessons arise for the efficiency and effectiveness of the public services more generally. Dr Hoehmann was appointed by the Department of Health in March 2005. On 15th November 2010, he was arrested and charged with obtaining a pecuniary advantage by deception, which is an 15 offence under the Theft Act 1981. He was immediately suspended from work. In April 2011, he resigned from his post at Noble’s Hospital. In November 2011, his criminal trial ended. He was acquitted of the offence charged in the Isle of Man, but re-arrested and returned to the UK to face proceedings for extradition to Germany under a European Arrest Warrant. In referring the case to us, Mr Alex Downie MLC highlighted, firstly, the cost of keeping Dr 20 Hoehmann on remand for a year; secondly, the cost of finding a replacement stand-in consultant; thirdly, why it was not left to the GMC to pursue a prosecution. In March 2012, the Social Affairs Policy Review Committee referred the case to the Public Accounts Committee, which decided to investigate. 25 EVIDENCE OF MR D KILLIP AND MRS B SCOTT Q1. The Chairman: I am pleased to welcome two representatives of the Department of 30 Health, and I would like each witness to state their name and job title. Perhaps you would like to start, Mr Killip. Mr Killip: Thank you. David Killip, Chief Executive, Department of Health. 35 Mrs Scott: Barbara Scott, Hospital Manager, Noble’s Hospital. Q2. The Chairman: Thank you very much. When were you appointed, Mr Killip? 40 Mr Killip: I was appointed to the Chief Executive post in the Department of Health when the Department was conceived following the Government restructuring in the early months of 2010, _________________________________________________________________ 3 PAC-MS STANDING COMMITTEE, WEDNESDAY, 5th DECEMBER 2012 specifically 1st April 2010. However, prior to that I was the Chief Executive of the Department of Health and Social Security from 2nd June 2003. 45 Q3. The Chairman: Thank you. Mrs Scott? Mrs Scott: April four years ago… yes, it will be. 50 Mr Killip: 2008. Mrs Scott: Yes, 2008. The Chairman: April 2008 you were appointed. Okay, thank you very much. 55 Mrs Cannell. Q4. Mrs Cannell: Thank you, Mr Chairman, and good afternoon. I am just going to go straight into the dates. I just want to clarify the dates and the sequence of events as they occurred. As I understand it, it was on 10th March 2005 that Dr Hoehmann was 60 interviewed. Is that correct? Mrs Scott: Yes. Q5. Mrs Cannell: Okay, and then on 13th March of the same year, Dr Hoehmann filled out 65 his fitness to practice form, which failed to declare any previous convictions. Would that be correct? Mrs Scott: Yes. 70 Q6. Mrs Cannell: And then it was on 15th March that the Department of Health formally offered the post to Dr Hoehmann. My first question is he was interviewed and three days later he filled out his fitness to practice form, which failed to declare previous convictions, and two days following that you actually offered him the post. Why the rush? 75 Mrs Scott: He was interviewed on 10th March, (Mrs Cannell: Yes.) so you would normally offer a post within that timescale, because he had been interviewed and offered the job. Q7. Mrs Cannell: What date was it that he accepted the post? 80 Mrs Scott: Very shortly afterwards. He had already verbally accepted at interview. Q8. Mrs Cannell: Okay. It was not until 2008 that the criminal records check arrived, but it had failed to show up any of Dr Hoehmann’s convictions. What I am trying to get my head round, 85 having read all the evidence that we have submitted – and we have got quite a bit on this – it seems rather odd to me that good practice was not followed, in terms of waiting and offering the job to this doctor subject to his police checks, his previous criminal convictions if there were any, and all of those relevant checks that are normally done as part of the good practice before engaging a consultant to work here. Why wasn’t that done? 90 Mr Killip: I rather think it was. Mrs Scott: It was. 95 Mr Killip: In due course, I will make a comment about the criminal record check in 2008, but perhaps before we get to that point it might be easier to follow the chronology, so I will ask Barbara to speak about the recruitment process. Mrs Scott: Yes. The recruitment process is obviously a fairly long process from advert and the 100 Royal College has to approve the job description before the post is advertised. Once the advert closes, the closing date, the short-listing takes place and obviously the interviews then take place. The offer is made to the person subject to all those checks, and it states that in the letter. So that is _________________________________________________________________ 4 PAC-MS STANDING COMMITTEE, WEDNESDAY, 5th DECEMBER 2012 standard practice, that you make an offer to whichever person you wish to appoint, subject to references, police checks, whatever checks need to be done for that post. 105 Q9. Mrs Cannell: That is how we understand it, but it would appear that did not, in fact, follow in this particular case, did it? I am just going and looking now at the cross-examination of you, yourself, Mr Killip, by Lord Carlile QC, in terms of the matter, the legal case that was pursued, where you admitted under oath that there was a real possibility that the critical form had 110 not been received by the Department of Health at the time the job offer was made; and if it was, the envelope might not have been opened; and if it had, the form could simply have been filed by a clerk, rather than being read and its contents noted. That suggests to me, having read that evidence, that there was uncertainty as to whether or not the critical form that contained the previous convictions just seemed to disappear and that nobody became aware of it until it was way 115 down the road. It was, what, 2008, three years later? Mr Killip: No, it was not. Let me respond to your comment about the court case, but then I think matters would be helped if Barbara continued with the chronology. What I said to Lord Carlile in response to his questions is essentially that it could not be proven that the form was 120 received in time, because bear in mind the standard of evidence required in a criminal prosecution is very high. So it is not a case that necessarily what you describe did happen; it is just that it could not be proven that it didn’t happen. Q10. Mrs Cannell: Why couldn’t it be proven? 125 Mr Killip: Because I do not necessarily think that at every step in the process those matters were necessarily recorded, that something happened on a particular day at a particular time.