NHS spent '£100k' fighting 'bullied' manager in court

Mark Hemphill hopes changes will be made following his "traumatic" experience

An attempt to fight and overturn bullying claims against a former hospital manager has cost an NHS trust an estimated £100,000.

A tribunal hearing in 2024 found Mark Hemphill, 63, former head of health and safety at Swindon's Great Western Hospital (GWH), had been subject to "brutal and bullying" conduct under the trust's former chief executive, Kevin McNamara.

The trust appealed the decision which has since been dismissed. Legal costs amounted to £80,324, with expenses and estimated salaries taking the cost to more than £100,000.

Great Western Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust said it acknowledged legal proceedings can be costly and a substantial effort was made to resolve the matter.

The tribunal also found the trust's refusal of allowing Mr Hemphill to "retire and return" under an NHS scheme amounted to bullying.

The trust said while it "respects the legal process, it maintains that it acted appropriately when it declined Mr Hemphill's retire and return request and strongly refutes allegations of a culture of bullying".

Mr Hemphill hopes the trust will learn from his "absolutely traumatic" experience, which left him with "sleepless nights", and has called for an investigation.

A freedom of information request by Mr Hemphill found the legal costs had amounted to £80,034, excluding the costs of a further appeal hearing in July.

Executives and directors also claimed £746 in expenses to attend the hearing.

While the trust refused to provide cost salaries for the executives and directors who attended the week long tribunal hearing, Mr Hemphill estimates it would have been between £15,000 to £20,000.

Mr Hemphill, who represented himself, was also awarded £23,797 in compensation.

The first 11 years working at GWH were positive and his team "had a very good reputation", he said.

However, Mr Hemphill said things started to "go downhill" after his manager "left abruptly" in 2018 following an agreement that he would take on a side project looking at the hospital's "poor and failing" door access management system.

While the project was out of his job role, Mr Hemphill said he wanted to sort "out problems" that "would benefit the trust" and said the remuneration for his work and extra resource had already been agreed.

Mr Hemphill, who was going through chemotherapy at the time, said he had taken on extra projects in the past, including looking at the traffic management around the hospital, a project he described as one of his "proudest achievements".

However, Mr Hemphill said everything changed once Mr McNamara, who is now CEO of Gloucestershire Royal Hospitals NHS trust, "took hold of everything" and he was told he would carry on the project with no additional resource, no capital monies or remuneration.

Mr Hemphill then told management if they refused to "stick to what was agreed" he would stand down from the project. He later filed a grievance in December 2018.

However, Mr Hemphill said he thought things were moving forward after a meeting, which he believed to be about the resource for the project, was scheduled for later that month.

Kevin McNamara was implicated in bullying behaviour by a tribunal judge

On attendance, Mr Hemphill said it ended up to be an "impromptu performance improvement" meeting, instigated by Mr McNamara.

Unknowingly to Mr McNamara and Rupert Turk, director of estates and facilities, Mr Hemphill recorded the meeting on his phone which was later submitted to the tribunal.

In her 2024 ruling, Judge Street said the approach of the meeting "was bullying" and the two senior managers had subjected Mr Hemphill to "a string of negative comments all at once, without warning" and with "wide-ranging but vague allegations" to which he had no opportunity to respond to.

"It was misguided, brutal and bullying and calculated to put him on the defensive, without exploring the facts or encouraging change," she added.

Mr Hemphill said it felt like a "stitch up", especially after a positive appraisal with his line manager weeks earlier.

He later tried to "retire and return" under an NHS scheme on two occasions, which were turned down. He eventually resigned in 2022.

Mr Hemphill used YouTube tutorials to represent himself at the tribunal

Using YouTube tutorials, he later represented himself at an employment tribunal.

The hearing found Mr Hemphill had been forced to resign due to his employer's serious breach of their employment contract.

While the hospital trust denied all allegations, it did not challenge the overall finding of constructive dismissal, but it did appeal for the judge to reconsider her ruling that now allowing Mr Hemphill to use the retire and return scheme amounting to bullying.

In March 2024, the judge refused the appeal but the trust lodged a further appeal against the refusal. It was eventually dismissed in July.

'Disrupted my life'

"I'd never seen it [bullying] but it was so blatant that I got through all of the cases, all of the stages of this, right up to appeal, as an absolute novice with no legal training whatsoever," he said.

"It's disrupted my life for the last three years," he added.

Mr Hemphill said it had also affected his already ill health.

"I've got kidneys that are just about to fail. Twice they have failed, twice chemo has managed to keep them alive," he said.

He now faces being on dialysis for the rest of his life.

After the bullying claim was upheld, Mr Hemphill has urged the trust to reflect on what the tribunal judge concluded.

"If you don't learn the lessons from that, how are you ever going to put right what's wrong and how are you going to spread that knowledge in order to make the NHS better," he added.

Mr McNamara has since taken up the role of chief executive of Gloucestershire Royal Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust (GRHNFT).

"You'd think, when somebody is going for a new position, especially within the NHS, this proper person test would be something people would pay attention to," he said.

A spokesman for GRHNFT said the trust had no concerns regarding the appointment of Mr McNamara.

"The trust undertook appropriate checks required for a role of this nature and complied with its statutory and regulatory obligations, commonly referred to as the 'Fit and Proper Person Test checks'," he said.