GIDS being sued by their safeguarding lead.

[ItsAllGoingToBeFine]

(Text from their crowdfunder)

My Details

My name is Sonia Appleby. I am a qualified social worker (1981); adult psychoanalytic psychotherapist (I992); MSc. in health psychology, (research) and MBA. I have a long career safeguarding and protecting children in social care, health and as a children’s guardian in public and private proceedings.

I am currently the Named Professional for Safeguarding Children and the Safeguarding Children Lead at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. I am therefore still employed by the Trust against which I am bringing my claim.

What is Safeguarding?

In all NHS trusts and organisations there are professionals such as myself, who work with other internal departments and external agencies to ensure there are 'root and branch' systems to keep patients and service users safe. This means responding to patient/service users' personal experiences, also including their environmental, familial, community/peer circumstances and sometimes any of the aforementioned domains could require the intervention of other professionals in different agencies. Safeguarding children and young people also concerns ensuring there is a sufficiently, healthy culture that does not unwittingly contribute to potential harm regarding the people who use and deliver NHS services.

Safeguarding within the Trust

My primary task is to ensure that clinicians protect their patients/service users from avoidable harm and are also able to recognize and appropriately respond to situations where under 18s are in need of safeguarding. My secondary task is challenge practices which are either harmful or could lead to harm. The Trust is commissioned by NHS England to deliver a National Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), which provides services for children and adolescents diagnosed with gender dysphoria. The treatments available also include "puberty blockers".

I have sought to ensure the principle of ''safeguarding children and young people'' is upheld whilst service users are being assessed and treated within the GIDS service.

My Claim

I lodged a whistle-blowing claim in November 2019 at the Central London Employment Tribunal. Since then I have made 2 applications to amend my claim as new information came to light.

In my claim, I allege that because I made "protected disclosures" to my line manager regarding concerns raised by GIDS staff ( that the health or safety of patients was being, had been or was likely to be endangered), I was subjected to detriments.

I allege these detriments are:

i) the Tavistock misused it's own procedures to besmirch me and therefore jeopardize the role of safeguarding within the Trust;

ii) there was an unwritten but mandated directive from the Tavistock management that safeguarding concerns should not be brought to my attention despite being the Trust Safeguarding Children Lead;

iii) and, clinicians were discouraged from reporting safeguarding concerns to me.

I also allege various other detriments.

Further to disclosures made to Newsnight by former staff, BBC Newsnight produced a programme focusing on the allegation that the Trust did not want to report any concerns to me. www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-51806962

and you can watch it here

I'll start copying across as no-one else is yet...

THREAD: DAY 6 – Sonia Appleby v Tavistock and Portman Trust employment Tribunal

SA - Sonia Appleby
DS - Dr Dinesh Sinha, Tavistock Medical Director
YG - Yvette Genn, Tavi counsel
AP - Anya Palmer, SA counsel
EJG - employment judge Goodman

Questioning of DS by AP continues

AP refers DS to an email sent following his review email

AP - it's quite clear you cut hims off and move him on again. I'm going to suggest that you seem remarkably uncurious for some one charged with investigating safeguarding concerns in the trust. Do you agree?
DS. No I don't

AP - and now three people have raised the same concern with you about Polly Carmichael- Anna Hutchinson, Anastassis Spiliadis, who said the same thing that morning, and now Matt Bristow. It's surprising you didn't recognise it

Yesterday you said that you raised the issues with HR and then referred to the Hodge report
DS - that is my understanding
AP - i was hoping you cld give me more than your understanding because you were responsible for it

(I'm typing in word to make sure it's legible... will post when ready. Going too fast for me to type without typos)

(Going back to v start of proceedings today - DS wants to say that throughout the GIDS review he assumed everyone speaking in good faith.

AP refers to email from DS to SA after her review meeting and suggests he was 'drawing up the drawbridge' and wanted s/g to be 'data blind' to GIDS
DS - NO. I disagree.
AP - you were impeding her role
DS - i respectfully disagree

AP take DS to Dr Matt Bristow's review interview (1477) he tells DS of reports that gids staff told not to go to SA: "Whilst I remember actually I have something on my mind this is second hand, but I found it incredibly concerning and want to raise it because it happened...

"I was speaking to a friend a few weeks ago who still works in team and they told me that in the recent team meeting Polly had told the entire team not to go Sonia Appleby with any safeguarding issues
and to only every go to Gary Richardson..

"and to keep all safeguarding issues within the
service and not take them into the wider Trust."
AP - Your response is 'i'll come back to it'. That's somewhat surprising - it's a serious allegation

DS - it's not surprising as I was following lines of questioning... i do come back to it later on
AP suggests that to the extent he comes back to it at all, it is only to close it down and move on again.
DS - No. I'm making notes of concerns made

(Me: tweets have stopped for now)

My take from Saville (without reading the report) is that the public profile of an individual, service or organisation must never be used to ignore safeguarding or shut down those raising concerns. That seems to be right on point for Tavistock.

My jaw is on the floor with every new post.

@rogdmum

I’ve watched DS at the last couple of Tavi board meetings. He comes off as very defensive and cold. My impression of him yesterday was also that of a very cold person who was quite rude at points to AP. It doesn’t come out in the notes, but his interview was full of AP having to repeat her question, often struggling to get DS to answer or AP setting background, to be interrupted by DS saying, “I’m waiting for the question, Ms Palmer” or similar.

IMO, he comes across as a process driven micro manager. He kept emphasising he was interested in “themes” and as such he did not seem concerned about the individual incidents being raised- e.g. his vagueness as to whether or not he actually escalated them (to HR? Who in HR? He can’t remember).

I’m bemused by the fuss over the Jimmy Saville reference in the training session- surely it’s a perfectly normal, not eyebrow raising risk to raise in any environment where child protection is of the utmost importance?

That's really interesting background, thanks. And it doesn't sound like this person is someone who knows how to prioritise the safeguarding of children.

What do you think the judge makes of it? (Are we allowed to speculate on that?)

I was at Maya's court case the first time and I had a gut feeling that it was immediately obvious to every woman in the room how the "nonbinary" witness for the other side was being obnoxious in a very male way, (e.g. talking over the female barristers) but the judge didn't seem to notice at all. Not part of the case for either side, but it did turn out to be a good indication of the outcome.

AP - i'm going to suggest that you couldn't have followed up by referring to the Hodge report. You completed the report and action plan in march 2019. The hodge report process only began in November 2019, in response to SA's legal claim.

You could not have known in March that she was going to bring that claim.
DS - You're right... but many of the things I flagged up did not result in immediate action. there was a long timeline, so i don't agree with your interpretation

AP - you weren't going to do anything at all about these allegations were you/ And yet you can recall precisely the two members you spoke to about the Jimmy Savile allegations.
DS - said i thought it was the HR director
AP - that's speculation isn't it? you have no recollection

DS - i haven't looked into it in the same amount of detail as SA's cases

AP - 1487 - Points towards Sinha's gids review. Suggests he's asked to find out whether "Appropriate safeguarding practices and procedures are being applied to children being seen within the service" and...

"There is evidence that the senior staff employed within GIDS have been aware of the concerns raised and:

• Ignored them; and / or
• Attempted to silence those that have raised the concerns."

An allegation that Polly Carmichael guided staff not to seek advice from central s/g falls squarely in your remit doesn't it?
DS - Yes
AP takes DS to his findings. You've had three people tell you that PC has instructed staff not to take safeguarding concerns to SA...

DS - I spoke to 31 people. These are 3 people. I had to weigh up the balance of probabilities.
AP - you've accepted this falls within your terms of reference, so we'd expect to see your findings on that?

DS - No. I've said when there were individual concerns they were taken further, but there were also those who spoke favourably of the GIDS director

AP - But I'm questioning your approach These three people are all making the same allegations; it's serious; it's about the director of GIDS; and it has ramifications for other people; even if you did take it to HR that's not an appropriate way of dealing with is it?

DS - i don't agree. Because there was such a plurality of views in the 31 interviews, in writing the report i had to give a fairly balanced perspective where i was confident of the issues i found...

...the other thing i found was that even where those individuals raised those concerns, i was seeing whether their actions were actually impeded. and actually they were all still seeking advice from central safeguarding. So I cannot deal with it as a systemic issue.

AP - you cannot seriously suggest you deal with this kind of issue with 'counting heads.' eg if three people say they're being racially harassed...you wouldn’t' conclude that because others didn't report that they these three hadn't.
DS - as part of the review i was not trying to address individual matters, I took advice from HR. i think we're going to have to agree to disagree

AP - it's not an individual matter. if it's true that the director of gids is telling people not to take s/g issues to the s/g team, that's not an individual matter, it's a team matter.
DS - I have nothing to add

AP - i'm not sure we see that they were still seeking advice...but point is this shouldn’t be happening. Even if they knew better, others might not...
DS - i'm not going to change my answer... i raised individual concerns and that is what happened in the case of Polly Carmichael

AP points towards findings - suggests there are no findings about allegation that PC tells staff not to take cases to S/G
DS - as i say individual concerns were not specified in the findings … I did not mention that specific allegation ...

but I did talk about cultural issues in the service and broader concerns.
AP – you do ask a question that’s pertinent at 1501:“I asked interviewees several questions around safety and adequacy of the procedures in the management of risk...

"I also asked them, if they were aware of incidents and complaints to do with the management of referrals within the service”.
That could touch on safeguarding. But an uniformed reader would take from your reader that you didn’t find anything worrying wouldn’t they?

DS – I don’t think so…. Actually I find lots of areas of concerns and my action plan was to deal with those… I was not giving a clean bill of health to the service

AP – well that’s how it comes across – you receive the same serious allegation about the director of the service and you don’t mention it – that’s exactly what it does look like – ‘a clean up report’

AP quotes further - 1502 "As stated previously, there was a persistent theme of reported difficulties in internal communication that made concerns from clinicians more difficult to manage and seemed connected with perceptions about the leadership”...

AP - if anything that suggests that you saw concerns from AH, AS, MB as a management issue that needed to be contained rather than a s/g issue that needed to be addressed

DS – no I found various places where there needed to be improved, and that included with the management of risk and safeguarding… and I point out that SA never came to me and said people were not bringing cases to her

AP – she wasn’t aware of it at the time, that’s precisely why when you receive this information from three different people you should have addressed it
DS – SA said last week she had concerns much earlier… So I don’t agree with you

AP – YOU say “The recent appointment of a safeguarding lead for the service has been a significant step forward and it is important that the continuing enhancements in safeguarding framework within the
service are accompanied by...

"respectful support from central safeguarding resources.” Safeguarding lead was GR?
DS – that’s my understanding
AP – you’re saying SA should not step on GR’s toes aren’t you?

DS – No. I think there’s a lot that individual people have read into the review report and thought it applies to them – it does not.
AP – the clear implication is that SA has been disrespectful in the past
DS – I disagree
AP – And not surprising she took offence

AP moves to SA disciplinary proceedings. You speak to HR colleague for advice on how to deal with alleged comments made by SA? Asks when was this?
DS does not recollect but says these were face to face meetings.

DS says colleague is on maternity leave and hasn’t asked her if she may have any notes of those conversations.
AP suggests that having representative of HR present indicates that this was not an informal process

DS – my experience was often what SA had memorialised was not how I had recollected the discussions and conclusions were not what I had believed…
AP – It’s always open to you to respond with a clarification as to what is wrong
DS – it was perfectly reasonable to have HR there

AP – I’m saying it’s perfectly reasonable to SA to memorialise meetings, and then reasonable for you to respond?
DS – No, I consider that fairly laborious
AP – why have notes of this discussion, with HR present, not been disclosed?

DS – says he doesn’t know what happened to those notes
AP – so what’s your recollection?
DS – that i drafted a letter using the information that was available
AP – does that include the notes?
DS – I can’t remember

AP – is it actually the case that HR drafted the letter and you signed off on it
DS – no.
AP – you didn’t think it fair to warn the claimant that the meeting was to discuss an alleged complaint?

DS – I did say it would be an informal meeting with HR there, but at the beginning of the meeting I did give her a chance to withdraw or continue
AP – the question is didn’t you think it was fair to warn her that this was to discuss an allegation against her

DS – no. that was the purpose of the meeting to explore the allegation, rather than an investigation into it
AP – you decided to have an HR colleague to help you not be misrepresented, but you didn’t give her the opportunity to have a colleague to help her?

DS – my recollection is that the member of HR was for both our benefit…
AP – quite clear from SA’s view that to turn up to a meeting to find HR when she wasn’t expecting it
DS – yes, she was shocked by it. But I was surprised by that because it was in an email

Ap – that email was withdrawn
DS – yes. But I was surprised to see that.
DS says he might have asked his PA in person to cancel the meeting, but he’s unsure

AP moves to the meeting itself. Suggests it’s understandable that SA wouldn’t want to ‘prolong the agony’ by putting the meeting back
DS – says he can’t comment on others’ feeling two and a half years on

AP – SA says “Dr Sinha proceeded to tell me that somebody had told him during the review that clinicians were concerned I was discussing Jimmy Savile and linking that to the GIDS service.” Is that right?

DS wants to check what he said in his witness statement. Agrees it closely matches.
AP – I’m puzzled – when did you produce this witness statement?
DS – it’s been in production at various stages even from last year – since November 2020

AP – and this is a meeting in July 2019, so how did you produce the witness statement, if not from your personal recollection?
DS – I haven’t said I don’t remember it, I’m trying to be as accurate as possible

AP – do you remember her saying she refuted linking JS to the gids service?
DS – I do
AP says SA said she mentions JS in training in a different context … Kirsty Entwistle says she attended training given by SA in march 2018 – and has provided notes of that training...

Asks DS whether he agrees that there is nothing wrong with this formulation
DS – Not at all. But my understanding of these particular comments is that it had nothing to do with training but in relation to GIDS. And you’ll be speaking to Garry Richardson about that

AP – and there is another person you spoke to who says this (1321) – we don’t see you ask any follow up question to get additional information/context.
DS – again – I saw this as an individual matter

AP – but you say you know this didn’t appear in training context, but you didn’t ask any questions about it
DS – no, I referred to GR’s statement.
SA – and you’ll be aware that SA refutes his allegation entirely.

DS – yes
AP – And you don’t ask why he hasn’t raised this before? (1393)
DS explains that he was ‘repeatedly told’ by two HR officials that GR comment in review wasn’t sufficient for a formal investigation
Ap – you didn’t ask him when this conversation took place?
DS – NO

AP – because if you had and found it many many months ago you might have asked why he didn’t raise it before
DS – I assumed everyone speaking to the review was doing so in good faith

AP – SA statement (p57WB) – “I asked him whether he had spoken directly to the person who had allegedly expressed these concerns and he said: “no”.
DS – I cannot agree with that.

AP quotes SA’s statement – “He told me that what he was planning to do was put a letter on my
file and he wanted to know what I thought about it. I told him that I thought that he was wrong
to effectively outcome the matter before investigating it.”
DS – I don’t agree with that.

DS says he did say he would put a letter on file – and it was HR that actually said that
AP – SA says HR didn’t speak a word…
DS – I don’t remember SA’s exact form of words, but I do remember her being unhappy that a letter was going on file

AP – you know what it means to put on a letter on someone’s file
DS – in this context it’s fairly standard practice to put an informal letter on someone’s file
AP – claimant says to you - “are you saying to me, that I had said that the GIDS service is akin to a
paedophile?”

DS – I absolutely don’t remember that.
AP – (p368) – do you agree with SA’s judgement?
DS – I agree that I asked her to be mindful about language

AP – SA says “It is absolutely necessary for me to talk about Jimmy Savile within the context of managing allegations about individuals who perpetrate physically, sexual and emotional abuse against children and adults.”
Do you accept that?

DS – I have no objection to her talking about JS in the context of training and it is entirely appropriate…
DS says in the context GR suggests it was not appropriate

AP – you accept that the context was a conversation about safeguarding… are you seriously suggesting that the s/g lead for the trust is allowed to talk about JS in the context of training, but it’s inappropriate to talk about it ...

...outside of training, even in conversation with GIDS’ s/g link or lead, who is a senior social worker, in a conversation about safeguarding
DS – If you look at what GR said, I did not think it appropriate

AP – I put to you her assertion that it’s absolutely nec to talk about JS in training… I said are you suggesting she shouldn’t talk about it outside of training. You said GR describes a context outside training… (repeats her questioning)

DS – I’ll clarify – what was being reported by GR – I’m not picking up context of conversation, I’m picking up content of the comment -and that is why I sought advice on that

AP… so you accept it doesn’t have to be in the context of training to talk about JS
DS – Yes

AP (DS statement 157 WB) talking about political context and divisions in gids team… yet you seem to take the allegation at face value, even though GR at same time suggests she in acting in bad faith and has ulterior motives

DS – I completely disagree. This was not the most adverse consequence, there could have been a formal investigation - and in other examples I’ve given you in one case there was a formal investigation

Ap – There couldn’t have been a formal investigation because you were repeatedly advised against it by HR – but that’s what you wanted to happen
DS – No.

AP suggests it’s completely different to take a note of the meeting versus a formal letter jointly drafted by HR to sit on a person’s file.
AP reads from letter a warning that SA not cause offence to any colleagues…
DS – I’m not warning her, I’m advising her

AP – you refer to a duty of care to address the JS allegation – to whom is that to?
DS – to safeguarding, where I felt there was risk if people couldn’t work well together
AP – What about your duty of care to SA where she’s warned about something she says she didn’t do

DS disagrees with word ‘warn’… I want there to be supportive, respectful relationships – that’s what I want to make clear
AP – but you don’t give SA the benefit of the doubt or treat her respectfully
DS – I disagree… I could have insisted on a formal investigation

AP – you wld have been insisting against two HR advisers
In final para you warn her that if there are further reports you might have to investigate formally?
DS – it’s my choice of words, nothing more sinister than that

AP – if you’d genuinely been accepting SA’s word, you would have used the word ‘allegation’ not ‘report’
…put to you if you’d actually gone through an investigation process, she wld have had a right of appeal wouldn’t she and letter wld stay for 12 months?

DS – I believe there is a process.
AP – but with your process she gets a warning from you, a letter on her file indefinitely, and no right of appeal
DS – this is not a warning letter. I agree the letter lies on her file
AP- indefinitely?

DS – as a record of an informal meeting, yes. Not as a warning
DS concedes there’s no right of appeal
AP – it’s definitely a detriment to her isn’t it
DS – I don’t agree

@Tibtom

My take from Saville (without reading the report) is that the public profile of an individual, service or organisation must never be used to ignore safeguarding or shut down those raising concerns. That seems to be right on point for Tavistock.

Agreed

Another thing I take from Saville is that some older women (mostly nurses) saw through him and did what they could to protect children

Thank-you ItsAllGoingToBeFine for posting Hannah Barnes tweets here. It’s easier to follow here

This is so frightening. I was bullied out of an NHS role when I raised problems about safeguarding (we worked with children in care). The managers lied and lied and lied throughout my formal grievance and I was given no opportunity to prove they were lying (I had proof). It nearly killed me. Literally. My mental health suffered so badly that 7 years on I'm still finding this 'triggering'. Sorry to use that word. Poor Sonia. I really feel for her.