The Department of Health made a scapegoat of a top statistician who raised the alarm with senior officials about yet another of Labour's hopeless privatisations.
Professor Denise Lievesley, former chief executive of the Information Centre, the NHS’s data factory, says she consistently highlighted concerns about the joint venture’s worth and its handling of information. Professor Lievesley’s claims are the latest in a series of questions raised about this particular joint venture, known as Dr Foster Intelligence, which a committee of MPs last year said had been set up in a “backroom deal” at a cost of £12m to the taxpayer.
Professor Lievesley, a former Royal Statistical Society president, claims the health department made her a scapegoat for the deal. Lievesley said she had “consistently complained about the joint venture and its operation” throughout her two-year tenure at the Information Centre. Professor Lievesley went on to say she felt she had no alternative in January 2006 but to sign off on the creation of Dr Foster Intelligence, as talks on it were too far advanced by the time she arrived at the centre in July 2005. She claims she helped the public sector secure better terms for the joint venture, which is equally owned by the Information Centre and Dr Foster LLP, a private health data company.
Lievesley, who was a non-executive board member of Dr Foster Intelligence, says some data processed by the joint venture was not, in her view, “fit for purpose”. She described an incident last year in which the joint venture included invalid hospital data on a prototype website, creating “grave” potential to mislead the public. She says she highlighted a “wholly inappropriate use of statistics" in letters to senior officials including David Nicholson, chief executive of the NHS.
Dr Foster hit back at the allegations, saying its data was of a high standard and did not mislead the public. The company said: “We understand Lievesley is in dispute with her former employers but do not know the details. We have not seen this affidavit, but we refute the criticisms that appear to have been made.”
The Dr Foster deal first came under fire in a National Audit Office report in February last year, which rebuked the health department for failing to follow a proper tendering process and for paying too much for its half of the joint venture. In July, the Commons public accounts committee unveiled a stinging report on the deal, in which the Information Centre paid £7.6m to Dr Foster LLP and sank another £4.4m into the joint venture company.
Professor Lievesley has gone to the employment tribunal to try to revoke a confidential deal under which she received a pay-off in exchange for her silence about the circumstances surrounding her departure from the Information Centre in July. She says the agreement was unfair as the health department failed to point out in public that her exit was unconnected with the criticism of the Dr Foster deal made in the Commons public accounts committee report a few weeks later. Her affidavit says: “It is ironic that my reputation should have been sullied when I was actually trying to promote the principles of proper and ethical access to information.”
The Department of Health said it had sought and followed legal and professional advice during the creation of the venture. It declined to comment on the claim it had made Professor Lievesley a scapegoat, saying it could not speak about an ongoing case.
Bastards ... slimy bastards all over the world!
Professor Denise Lievesley, former chief executive of the Information Centre, the NHS’s data factory, says she consistently highlighted concerns about the joint venture’s worth and its handling of information. Professor Lievesley’s claims are the latest in a series of questions raised about this particular joint venture, known as Dr Foster Intelligence, which a committee of MPs last year said had been set up in a “backroom deal” at a cost of £12m to the taxpayer.
Professor Lievesley, a former Royal Statistical Society president, claims the health department made her a scapegoat for the deal. Lievesley said she had “consistently complained about the joint venture and its operation” throughout her two-year tenure at the Information Centre. Professor Lievesley went on to say she felt she had no alternative in January 2006 but to sign off on the creation of Dr Foster Intelligence, as talks on it were too far advanced by the time she arrived at the centre in July 2005. She claims she helped the public sector secure better terms for the joint venture, which is equally owned by the Information Centre and Dr Foster LLP, a private health data company.
Lievesley, who was a non-executive board member of Dr Foster Intelligence, says some data processed by the joint venture was not, in her view, “fit for purpose”. She described an incident last year in which the joint venture included invalid hospital data on a prototype website, creating “grave” potential to mislead the public. She says she highlighted a “wholly inappropriate use of statistics" in letters to senior officials including David Nicholson, chief executive of the NHS.
Dr Foster hit back at the allegations, saying its data was of a high standard and did not mislead the public. The company said: “We understand Lievesley is in dispute with her former employers but do not know the details. We have not seen this affidavit, but we refute the criticisms that appear to have been made.”
The Dr Foster deal first came under fire in a National Audit Office report in February last year, which rebuked the health department for failing to follow a proper tendering process and for paying too much for its half of the joint venture. In July, the Commons public accounts committee unveiled a stinging report on the deal, in which the Information Centre paid £7.6m to Dr Foster LLP and sank another £4.4m into the joint venture company.
Professor Lievesley has gone to the employment tribunal to try to revoke a confidential deal under which she received a pay-off in exchange for her silence about the circumstances surrounding her departure from the Information Centre in July. She says the agreement was unfair as the health department failed to point out in public that her exit was unconnected with the criticism of the Dr Foster deal made in the Commons public accounts committee report a few weeks later. Her affidavit says: “It is ironic that my reputation should have been sullied when I was actually trying to promote the principles of proper and ethical access to information.”
The Department of Health said it had sought and followed legal and professional advice during the creation of the venture. It declined to comment on the claim it had made Professor Lievesley a scapegoat, saying it could not speak about an ongoing case.
Bastards ... slimy bastards all over the world!
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