Context
Sue Hodkinson was Director of HR from 2015 to 2018. She oversaw the grievance process Letby filed against the consultants who had raised concerns about her, and the “apology letter” sequence. Her Thirlwall Inquiry evidence addresses how HR processes were brought to bear on what was at its root a patient-safety dispute.
Key passages
Her role and the Speak Out Safely policy. Susan Hodkinson told the Inquiry she was the Countess of Chester’s Executive Director of People and Organisational Development, with responsibility across roughly 4,400 staff, and that as a non-clinical professional she considered herself accountable to the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development even though “unlike the NMC, the GMC, the HCPC” there was no equivalent regulator for HR staff. She was taken through the Trust’s 2013 Speak Out Safely policy, which said in terms: “This policy supports staff by ensuring their concerns are fully investigated and that there is someone independent outside of their team to speak to”.
The meeting notes and the “witch hunt”. Ms Hodkinson read out her own notes of a meeting at which Mr Chambers was recorded setting out three options — “Nul, substance, police called, hypothesis simply and joint view. Heading, creates witch hunt” — and explained “nul” as meaning “do nothing, it’s always an option in any situation, never mind the situation”. Asked about a further note reading “Mr Chambers feels personal. Need to be safe, kind and effective”, she said she could see how it might be read as referring to Letby but could not say what he had meant by it. Pressed directly on whether she accepted that Dr Brearey and Dr Jayaram were genuinely concerned that Letby was “murdering, deliberate harming babies”, she answered: “They were genuinely concerned”.
“Managing them out”. Counsel put to her that a note from her one-to-one with Mr Chambers recorded a discussion of managing the consultants out of the Trust. Asked “That is what Mr Chambers was discussing, wasn’t he, managing them out?”, she agreed, adding “Nothing happened with that though” and, when the point was pressed, “Nothing happened with that at all”. She also told the Inquiry that in a conversation on 15 March Dr Jayaram had said to her it was “the first time he felt he had been listened to”.
The mediation and Dr Jayaram’s grievance. Asked whether she appreciated that Dr Jayaram felt under duress to engage in mediation with Letby, Ms Hodkinson said she had “reflected a lot around this” and that “I regret putting him through the mediation process, I should have stalled it at that stage on 15 March as soon as he disclosed that information to — to me”. She added: “I apologise if he felt under duress and for the — for the experience he went through”.
Protecting whistleblowers. Questioned on why whistleblowers need protection, she agreed they are vulnerable to being “victimised, bullied, managed out of Trusts”, telling the Inquiry that through her training with the National Freedom to Speak Up Guardian she was aware “there was various different cases, unfortunately were there were some — some deaths of former members of staff who have, you know, been whistleblowers, absolutely”. Asked to confirm that being a whistleblower is “a brave and difficult thing”, she answered: “Extremely”.
What to read alongside this
See Sue Hodkinson, Karen Townsend (HR Business Partner) and Dr Brearey’s account of being asked to sign the apology letter.