Medical staff rally in support of suspended chief exec » Communities » 24dash.com

More than 200 hospital consultants and medical staff today rallied in support of a suspended NHS Trust chief executive.

The board of Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust said John Watkinson had been suspended to facilitate an independent review into the Trust's management and corporate governance arrangements.

The review was announced jointly last week by the Trust and South West Strategic Health Authority following a recent report on Bromley Hospitals' Trust - where Mr Watkinson was previously chief executive.

An investigation was undertaken after it was discovered that the Bromley Hospitals NHS Trust found itself with a £23 million in-year deficit - £10 million worse than reported - and an accumulated debt of £87 million.

The acting chairman of the RCHT, John Mills, acting Chairman of RCHT, said today: "I want to emphasise that this decision is solely to facilitate the independent review being carried out effectively and in a manner that commands public confidence.

"It implies no negative judgment whatsoever on Mr Watkinson's performance at RCHT," he said.

A meeting of the consultants and senior doctors at the Royal Cornwall Hospital later issued a statement saying the medical staff condemned Mr Watkinson's suspension.

"The meeting offered John Watkinson and the principles he stood for their full support.

"They agreed that the new management team had made huge progress in turning around the Trust and clearly had made patients their first priority.

" The management of the finances at the Trust under John Watkinson's leadership has been praised by the Audit Commission today, so there appears no reason why he should not return to work immediately," said the statement.

Earlier this week, after Mr Watkinson went on special leave, 13 senior medical staff at the RCHT said in a statement that they believed he had been the subject of "an apparently orchestrated attack by the South West Strategic Health Authority and the Cornwall & Isles of Scilly Primary Care Trust."

And Health Initiative Cornwall - a county wide group of members of the public campaigning for equitable access to services and funding of the NHS in Cornwall - also supported Mr Watkinson ahead of his suspension.

It said it was adding its voice to the "growing body of claims that a witch hunt is being undertaken" by the South West Strategic Health Authority and the Cornwall & Isles of Scilly Primary Care Trust to discredit John Watkinson.

Before Mr Watkinson's suspension, the South West Strategic Health Authority and Royal Cornwall Hospitals NHS Trust said the review had been launched "in view of the serious issues" raised in the Bromley.

"The joint review will be undertaken by an independent team and will consider whether issues of competence and behaviour highlighted in Bromley Hospitals have in any way occurred in Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust.

"The joint review will also clarify whether the Royal Cornwall Hospital's financial management and governance arrangements have been and remain appropriate," added the statement.

The RCHT said there were no concerns about the quality of patient care that continued to be provided by staff at the Royal Cornwall Hospitals Trust.