GIDS being sued by their safeguarding lead.

Pc - there’s much more to it than that. He had sent me several emails at the beginning of the year asking for information on GIDS… I did meet with dr bell. He told me he didn’t know a lot about the service…

so the background for me was that there was a complete lack of transparency around dr bell meeting with members of the team for a long period of time without my knowledge. That’s v different to the safeguarding lead meeting people about safeguarding concerns…

when you have groups of clinicians going outside the team, perhaps reflecting different views, it can cause difficulties… I’m sitting in a team with v difficult dynamics going on, trying to support that team with open conversation..

and that’s made even more difficult when there are potential splits in the team

Pc and ap discussing SA’s audit of GIDS safeguarding referrals. Pc felt that it was an unfair comparison and didn’t think it very helpful and didn’t show understanding of the service

Ap - were you in the dark as to want allegations were until meeting in Feb?
Pc - I was.

Ap suggests that PC’s irritation is evident from witness statement
Pc - I do not recall being in a state of ‘considerable irritation.’.. I thought it was a v helpful meeting

Ap - you’re open with her that you were irritated at how you found out. That’s understandable, but wasn’t SA fault

Pc - I don’t agree with that. There was a febrile atmosphere outside the service; there were issues in the service… but if groups get split off then things tend to get polarised. I’m trying to convey why things are difficult. It’s not irritation.

Ap refers to Pc talking about Dr Bell. (438) email from Sonia suggests that something potentially ‘transformational’ needs to happen.
You say that prior to that you didn’t know GIDS staff were meeting with someone outside the service without your knowledge…

your clearly discontented about DB asking questions about the service but you didn’t have problems with SA

Ap refers to PC’s witness statement (par 44, 142) where she discusses aforementioned email and says she would speak to sally Hodges… but what’s clear is that discussion on best was forward are only intended for your team, not SA

Pc - my intention was to be constructive. It’s not that I had no intention of sitting down with Sonia. It’s important to ascertain the information and get the facts.

Ap - absolutely. But you’re not proposing to include Sa
Pc - not in that email. But I think our focus is on the team and addressing concerns in the team

Ap - except the concerns are safeguarding concerns and she is the safeguarding lead
Pc - well there were safeguarding concerns but discussions I’d had with SA were about private providers and how you understand gender dysphoria…

It’s hard to convey just what a conflicted context this was to work in at the time… there were different views emerging with different perspectives. That threw up differences in the team and as team got larger there were challenges surrounding constructive conversation

Ap says it’s clear that she wasn’t critical of you, it was of Rob Senior
Pc - at the time we knew there were Concerns being raised that we were not invited to respond to. That’s not a criticism of Sonia

Ap - you understand now that dr Senior said he’d raise it with your line manager and she was waiting for that to happen. I don’t know why she was taking to task about this last week…

Pc - don’t recall in our meeting in 2018 that she was waiting for a response. I recall it as a positive meeting and Sonia apologised for not bringing concerns to me and said she wld in the future

Ap suggests pc has a mindset that she knows best
Pc disagrees. People who known me know that. The context is the team grappling w some very difficult issues, the service expanding rapidly with bots of new clinicians...’we needed support rather than criticism.’

Ap - does it occur to you that the way you talk about Sa to your senior team is quite undermining?
Pc - I don’t accept that. I think it’s quite a straight email… I don’t agree that Sonia is being undermined.

(Me: I need to stop for a bit now,.sorry )

Pc says it’s clear from her email and the chain that there is not clear, open communication; that we as a team want to do our best…I don’t see any more than that

Ap - why don’t you approach SA and also what it’s about
Pc - my focus at the time was on whether there was something or not that we should have responded to

Ap - but what you don’t do is hit the reply button and say Sonia I’m confused here. That would have been best wouldn’t it

Pc - I don’t think so. I’m genuinely trying to find out if there is something we should have done.

Ap - you refer to the fact that SA didn’t bring concerns to you. You’ve heard through these proceedings that she did go to RS and why

Pc - I respect that. And I didn’t know that at the time. But the state of affairs was that I was not communicated with

PC evidence continues

Ap - (p402) email from Sa to rob senior, October ‘17. First protected disclosure and then a second a few weeks later saying she’s seen four clinicians form GIDS in as many weeks… you found about these in early 2018?
Pc - yes

Ap (p404) - email about safeguarding in GIDS. SA replies says she’s escalated discussions on two occasions and is awaiting a response… Gr forwards this to you and Sarah Davidson and Bernadette Wren

Pc confirms that both were in exec though Bw has retired and SD has left the service now

Ap - going to suggest that response from GR is disrespectful to SA. Wld you agree?
Pc - No. the two emails you refer to are quite strange. Email from frank is quite complimentary and Sonia’s email raises concerns about functionality of the team…

Think there’s an assumption that there’s someone in the exec who’s not responded

Ap - GR could have just asked Sonia directly
Pc - I think he’s just checking there’s a response that we haven’t done

(Me: something has gone wrong with tweet threading I think, but I think I have it all)

Brief break so that additional questions can be asked of Dinesh Sinha

YG - you’ve produced some emails after your evidence. Why did you look for them and what do they show?
DS - i looked for emails relating to actions relating to Polly Carmichael. The email chain is a link to the concerns and links up with my recollection of speaking to HR director

YG - it talks about a fact finding exercise. Were you involved in that
DS - that was end of my involvement as I am not PC’s line manager.

Ap - have you subsequently found anything else?
DS - I can’t find anything else in relation to Pc
Ap - are these in relation to Sa only. We know there are allegations she has made homophobic remarks, and from Anastassis Spiliadis about his Greek heritage?

DS - as far as I know it was concerns raised in the review. I don’t have further information

Ap quotes AS again about Polly questioning him about going to discuss a case with Sonia
PC - I categorically think that is incorrect. I don’t recognise my words here…

I don’t question, in the sense you’re implying, people in the team. They are highly trained individuals and each has responsibility for the cases we deal with…And I would not question someone for going to someone in the trust about safeguarding.

Ap refers to statement provided day after NN broadcast on 18th June 2020. Were you involved in producing this statement?

Pc - I’m not sure. It will have come from the comms dept. Around the time of that NN, which was deeply upsetting, I most likely was sent this but I wld need to check

Ap reads the statement as saying safeguarding lead was appointed in august 2018

Pc - the truth is what wld really formalise it is if there was a job description attached to that. In some ways you could argue it wasn’t formalised until even more recently… I don’t know where that date came from

Ap - 1452 Anastassis Spiliadis transcript he says people were not encouraged to go outside the GIDS team. He’s referring to the GIDS lead not being in place until sept 2018…

he then goes on to say that up until then there was a clear message from senior management t about being cautious about how we speak to the central safeguarding team at the Tavi, specifically SA. That’s right isn’t it?

Pc - No. clearly incorrect about the timing of the role. And doubly incorrect to suggest there was any caution about going to central team

Ap - he quite emphatic about what he says

Pc - he says that. I’m saying it’s not true. I didn’t have many meetings with AS. And only discussed a few cases with him. The context of the service is very complicated and there is dispute about what would amount to a safeguarding concern in relation to gender dysphoria

I totally dispute that I ever said do not go to Sonia

Ap - wld you agree that someone can agree to something at the time without knowing how it would turn out. SA might not have agreed to accept the role if she’d known further down the line people wld be told not to go to her

Pc - don’t agree people were told not to go to her. The role was always going to be an evolving one. I don’t agree with that question really

Ap - 56 (Tavi’s defence) - suggests to pc that link and lead were very different things. Would you accept that

Pc - in order to act as a voice for the service you need to have a position as a lead. I do genuinely think the two terms are used interchangeably.

Ap - am I right in thinking that GIDS was first service to have its own safeguarding lead
Pc - I can’t accurately answer that
Ap - but you say he was appointed link/lead because you wanted in house lead and policy followed from that

Pc - it wasn’t that I wanted it, it was discussed with medical director and others

(303) April 2020 - on this occasion we see that primary responsibility still lies with names professionals but among new people mentioned are service line safeguarding leads inc GIDS. So follows that change occurred between the two

Pc - from these documents, yes. But it’s nominal from my perspective. It was official in the service before that. It was a service role in terms of being safeguarding lead for the GIDS, and not a trust role

Ap - and it’s important to you that it’s a service role, not a trust one
Pc - I don’t understand. It in no way undermines any of the trust roles. It was there for a specific purpose to improve communication - as we know

I think you’re dating things based on documents… that role developed. We used the words safeguarding lead in GIDS to describe the link role

AP takes PC through SA’s job description. Then GR’s - ‘GIDS specialises social worker’. Wld you agree there’s nothing here about safeguarding specialities?

PC - I agree there’s nothing specifically about taking the role of S/g lead but thing lay in it like taking supervision that would relate to that type of role.

AP - so was primary requirement someone who sat inside GIDS, rather than a specific safeguarding professional

Pc - it’s not as simple as that… clinicians have previous experiences, so when I’m looking for individuals their background experience is highly relevant and this was someone who had extensive experience in his previous posts

Ap suggests that GR doesn’t become lead until august 2018. Safeguarding procedure of Nov ‘17 (SB 261) does not mention other safeguarding staff outside of named professionals.

AP - par 20 - wld you agree that only recently the central S-g team have been referred to that way?
PC - don’t know … Would see the trust safeguarding team and central safeguarding team as the same thing

Ap - p398 SB - GIDS board paper July 2018 - on 402 you say we’ve completed a review of how safeguarding concerns are documented… appointed a team safeguarding lead who will liaise with the central team; suggests you’ve just appointed GR as lead

PC - I understand that a big distinction is being made between link and lead. In GIDS itself he became the safeguarding lead on the ground. There wasn’t a specific date that he became it. Sorry that’s not more concrete but that’s my reality
Ap - that’s fine

395 - email from PC saying she will identify someone as a link. Pc - don’t know where word comes from but intention is to improve communication betw GIDS and trust safeguarding team

Ap - 249 - GIDS organisational chart. GR there - and he’s a senior?
PC - yes one of the management team. Pc confirms that exec sits above that

PC says nothing was put in writing about GR’s role. It was about communication and having a named individual in the team. And it evolved from there
… I was aware of the want to have other leads in other services but there wasn’t a job description at the time

Next witness is GIDS director Dr Polly Carmichael (PC)

It seems like a really toxic working environment. Lots of insinuations but nothing concrete ever said or recorded. In some ways I imagine a formal investigation would have been better for SA, she could have exonerated, and that would be it done with. Instead she has a letter on her file, and a threat of further action hanging over her.