A former NHS chief executive who won £1.4m from the hospital where Lucy Letby murdered babies today revealed she feels nothing but ‘contempt’ for the ‘vindictive’ chairman who even paid staff ‘bonuses’ to try to oust her.
Dr Susan Gilby, 62, took the Countess of Chester Hospital to court after being bullied out of the top job by chairman Ian Haythornthwaite and other senior leaders, in December 2022.
A judge upheld her claim for unfair dismissal and last week it emerged she had been awarded the huge sum – one of the largest payouts ever made by the NHS to a former employee – after the ordeal effectively ended her NHS career.
Today – in her first in-depth interview – the anaesthetist told the Mail’s Trial UK podcast that, after lodging her employment claim, she was ‘astonished’ to learn of the lengths Mr Haythornthwaite went to to get rid of her when she blew the whistle on his aggressive behaviour and determination to put cutting costs over patient care.
Dr Gilby revealed that, among the 33,000 emails, text messages, notes and documents disclosed to her lawyers was evidence of a secret plot, nicknamed Project Countess, designed to discredit her and force her out.
Set up by Mr Haythornthwaite, the project had the ‘sole aim of exiting (Dr Gilby) to protect his position as chair,’ Judge Dawn Shotter said.
Describing the moment that she discovered such a project existed, Dr Gilby said: ‘I was bewildered that people were acting with so much venom, it was so vindictive and I just couldn’t understand why. The extreme lengths they went to, to try and harm me was something that I just found difficult to get my head around.
‘It wasn’t for the greater good. It wasn’t for anything other than to do me harm and protect him (Haythornthwaite). There was actually a note that was found in disclosure that said, ”must protect the chair.”
Former chief executive Susan Gilby, 62, was awarded £1.4m compensation from the Countess of Chester Hospital after being bullied and harrassed out of her job
Ex-chairman and accountant Ian Haythornthwaite, 66, set up ‘Project Countess’ and gave ‘bonuses’ to staff to help devise ways to get rid of Dr Gilby when they fell out over his behaviour and determination to cut costs
It also later emerged that Mr Haythornthwaite, a former BBC accountant, agreed to make irregular ‘honoraria’ or bonus payments to two non-executive directors, Ken Gill and Ros Fallon, in return for their work on Project Countess.
‘We know they were each paid two payments of a high five-figure sum,’ Dr Gilby said. ‘That was a shocking moment, which I didn’t believe at first, I had to be shown the evidence.’
Asked if she had ever broken down after hearing about how they conspired behind her back, Dr Gilby said that ‘wasn’t really her style,’ adding simply: ‘I just got angry. My overall feeling about them is contempt.’
Dr Gilby was appointed to the position of medical director at the Countess three weeks before Letby’s first arrest, in July 2018.
Less than two months later, however, she found herself in the top job after the sudden departure of chief executive Tony Chambers, who left when the hospital’s paediatricians threatened to hold a vote of no confidence in his leadership over the handling of their suspicions about the killer nurse.
Despite the immediate challenges that brought, Dr Gilby said she successfully navigated the hospital through the Covid-19 pandemic and was making strides in improving its poor governance and culture when Mr Haythornthwaite was appointed as hospital chairman in late 2021.
However, Dr Gilby said it quickly became apparent that he wanted her to work for him and not with him and, when she challenged his approach, he became ‘aggressive and intimidating’ towards her.
In one distressing meeting, in July 2022, Mr Haythornthwaite blew his top when Dr Gilby decided to try to talk to him about why they were not getting on.
Lucy Letby, 36, was on trial at Manchester Crown Court when Dr Gilby was forced out of the Countess of Chester Hospital. She was convicted of murdering seven babies and trying to kill seven other infants in August 2023.
Dr Gilby told the Mail she was ‘utterly devastated’ by the way she was treated at the Countess (pictured) but felt ‘comprehensively vindicated’ by the judge’s findings
‘He was slamming his hand onto the table in front of me, shaking his hand in my face and started gaslighting (me),’ she said.
It was following this meeting, when Dr Gilby made an official complaint about Mr Haythornthwaite, that their relationship nose-dived and he apparently contrived to try to get rid of her.
By November, Dr Gilby said their relationship was so bad that ex-midwife Ms Fallon told her it was ‘time to go.’
Dr Gilby was offered the chance to leave the hospital with a ‘bribe’ of 16-months’ salary in a non-job with NHS England, so long as she dropped her complaint against Mr Haythornthwaite and went without a fuss.
But Letby’s trial had begun at Manchester Crown Court a month earlier and she said she felt a ‘moral obligation’ to stay in post to support staff – doctors and nurses who were being called to give evidence – get through the stressful court hearings.
She also knew she couldn’t live with leaving a bully at the top of the hospital when previous NHS scandals, for example, in Bristol, Morecambe Bay and MidStaffs, had proven that patients often came to harm in Trusts with similarly poor leadership.
‘I knew I wanted to do the right thing, maintain my integrity and stand up for what was right,’ she said.
However, when Dr Gilby refused to go, she was formally suspended and was left with no choice but to resign.
Dr Gilby said that, although last week’s award vindicated her decision to ‘take on the NHS’ she said fighting her case over the past three years had taken an enormous ‘psychological toll.’
She said it had left her ‘isolated’ and worried about setting foot in a hospital again.
Her ordeal has, however, convinced her that Government proposals for the regulation of NHS managers, which will ban those who block whistleblowers and are found guilty of serious misconduct, from working in the health service, need to be introduced.
‘I now believe that there are people out there who don’t have the values that I perhaps naively expect people in public service to have and who don’t have a moral compass,’ she added.
‘Perhaps mine is over-tuned, but it feels to me that some people have lost theirs altogether or never had one in the first place. And I think that it’s more common the higher up you look.’
Dr Gilby said it was disappointing that no one ‘senior’ from the NHS had apologised or reached out to her to try and learn lessons from her experience.
Referring to the proposed creation of a regulatory body for NHS executives, she added: ‘The General Medical Council protects patients and supports doctors and I would like to see a regulatory body that protects patients and supports non clinically qualified managers and executives.
‘The person who did this to me and was not a manager, he was there as a non-executive chair.
‘But he wanted to step in and manage in a way that was utterly unacceptable and would have resulted in further patient and probably staff harm.
‘It was worth standing up to it, but it would be good if other people didn’t have to follow my footsteps.’
In a statement, a spokesman for the Countess said the tribunal had been ‘resolved through a mutually agreed settlement.’
Mr Haythornthwaite, 66, who resigned on the day the tribunal judgement was published last February, declined to comment when approached by the Mail at his large-detached home, in Fulwood, Preston.
Yesterday prosecutors confirmed that Letby, who is serving a record 15 whole life sentences after being convicted of the murder of seven babies and the attempted murder of seven others – one of whom she attacked twice – will not face any further charges.