Public Office (Accountability) Bill — Written evidence submitted by Dr Minh Alexander (POAB03)

16 November 2025

Dear Public Bill Committee,

Evidence of Dr Minh Alexander retired Consultant Psychiatrist 16 November 2011

1. I write to contribute evidence to your consideration of the “Hillsborough Law” , or
the Public Office Accountability Bill.

2. I do so on the basis that I am a retired NHS Consultant Psychiatrist who has
whistleblown at several points in my former career. I also submit evidence as
someone who has researched and tracked the governance of NHS
whistleblowing and related matters such the regulation of Fit and Proper Persons
provisions for senior NHS managers. I have worked with other NHS
whistleblowers and have had the chance to observe typical patterns of NHS
cover ups and malfeasance. I have collated evidence at this website:
MinhAlexander.com

3. Firstly, I strongly welcome the intentions of the Hillsborough law to increase
accountability and transparency in public life, and to deter cover ups. I also
strongly support the Bill’s purpose in introducing greater equality of arms, and
representation for bereaved families.

4. I temper this with a degree of caution as I have watched countless NHS
transparency and accountability initiatives fail due to cynical implementation
that is clearly flawed from the start due to ineffective legislation – or no
legislative force at all – and due to conflicts of interest built into processes,
where the most senior culprits are given the responsibility for holding
themselves to account.

5. NHS organisational Duty of Candour organisational Duty of Candour (which is
distinct from professional duty of candour) has failed hopelessly as can be easily
deduced from ongoing regular headlines, lawsuits and serial inquiries into
clinical disasters that spring from earlier, wilful failures to learn. NHS maternity
failures are an obvious example, with inquiries announced on a frequent basis
before prior inquiries have been wrapped up. Despite a legal requirement for
candour, patients and relatives are often repeatedly misled when things go
wrong (my late husband and I experienced this often as service user and carer
respectively). I believe little changes because there is currently impunity for
these behaviours. Organisations are occasionally reprimanded and/or even
fined, but there is little personal consequence for most of the managers
involved. When the odd manager is fired, it is quite normal for them to be
recycled elsewhere in the NHS. This is often organised either with the direct
involvement or the connivance of the most senior layers of NHS management,
such as NHS England. Indeed, some senior offenders are rotated to NHS
England for a sabbatical – an arrangement that has in the past been dubbed “the
donkey farm” .

6. Very similar dynamics operate with respect to NHS managers who are proven to
seriously mistreat NHS whistleblowers.

7. Even when there are legally proven findings of whistleblower detriment,
dishonesty and other malpractice by senior NHS managers, many remain in their
posts or are protected by being recycled to other NHS employment.

8. The NHS is also sometimes used as a dumping ground for those who have failed
elsewhere. For example, Paula Vennells the former Post Office CEO was
parachuted into the chair of an NHS trust board.

9. I list in the annex below a few examples of serious impunity in the NHS.

10. In short, determined organisations find all sorts of ways to continue with poor
practices.

11. Therefore, I very much welcome the Public Office Accountability Bill’s provision
of a criminal offence for misleading the public. I agree that personal
accountability is needed for meaningful deterrence.

12. I hope such an offence might help catch a number of dishonest individuals who
are currently escaping the net, after engaging in cover ups that harm the public
interest, albeit I understand the bar for a criminal offence must rightly be high.

13. Turning to practicalities, I wonder if the Bill’s current definition of “misleading the
public” adequately captures the suppression of witnesses (eg. including
whistleblowers):

14. “11 Offence of misleading the public (1) A public authority or public official
commits an offence if, in their capacity 20 as such an authority or official—
(a) they act with the intention of misleading the public or are reckless as to
whether their act will do so, and (b) they know, or ought to know, that their
act is seriously improper. (2) For the purposes of this section an act is
seriously improper only if— 25 (a) it meets the condition in subsection (3),
and (b) a reasonable person would consider it to be seriously improper,
taking account of all the circumstances of the case. (3) The condition
mentioned in subsection (2)(a) is that the act— (a) involved dishonesty that
was significant or repeated (whether by 30 means of falsehood,
concealment, obfuscation or otherwise) in respect of matters of significant
concern to the public, (b) caused, or contributed to causing, harm to one or
more other persons, or had the potential to do so, and (c) departed
significantly from what is to be expected in the proper 35 exercise of the
person’s functions as a public authority or public official. ”

15. It may be additionally supportive to the public interest if a short clause is added
to explicitly include suppression of witnesses, as one possible part of the act of
concealment.

16. But apart from that, I think the Hillsborough Law is a welcome and long overdue
reform to give the public a greater voice against the power of institutions.

Dr Minh Alexander

ANNEX

17. A few examples of serious impunity in the NHS. There are many more.

18. Dr Jasna Macanovic Consultant Nephrologist was a fully vindicated
whistleblower with a case proven via the Employment Tribunal. The NHS trust
CEO who failed to ensure her protection from harassment and unfair dismissal
was promoted to a senior post at NHS England, where he remained after NHS
England was made aware of the background. Other trust executives who took
direct part in Dr Macanovic’s victimisation were protected by the NHS trust and
the regulator the Care Quality Commission did not see fit to challenge the trust’s
conclusions that they were Fit and Proper People. Dr Macanovic’s serious patient
safety concerns were not adequately acknowledged or addressed.

19. Mr Shyam Kumar a senior Orthopaedic Surgeon whistleblew about flawed
inspection process by the Care Quality Commission, which then defamed him,
tried to find more negative information about him and sacked him as a specialist
advisor for inspections. It did not hold the senior CQC staff who harmed him
accountable, and there was inadequate action regarding his patient safety
concerns about unsafe CQC inspection process.

20. Mr Tristan Reuser an Opthalmic Surgeon raised patient safety concerns and was
disciplined shortly after. An Employment Tribunal was severely critical of senior
trust managers who failed to disclose large tranches of documents and who
referred him to his professional regulator without disclosing that he had
previously made protected disclosures (a breach of required procedure,
designed to protect whistleblowers from vexatious referrals). The NHS trust
maintained, based on a process flawed by conflict of interest, that one of the
individuals was a Fit and Proper Person. The Care Quality Commission stood by
this, and wrongly claimed that the Fit and Proper Person process was
independent, when it later transpired that it had not. The original patient safety
concerns were not adequately addressed.